abstract
Exposure to nutritional stress during early ontogeny can generate latent effects that are carried over to later developmental stages and affect their growth performance. However, the compensatory role played by food quality at such later stages is not well known in invertebrates with bi-phasic life cycles. Here, larvae of the caridean shrimp Palaemon varians were either allowed to feed immediately after hatching or forced to advance to their next larval stage by catabolizing their endogenous energy reserves (using facultative primary lecithotrophy). After metamorphosis, decapodids originating from both groups of larvae were exposed to one of the following trophic scenarios until reaching the fifth juvenile stage: i) low nutritional quality, ii) high nutritional quality, iii) shifting from low to high nutritional quality, or iv) shifting from high to low nutritional quality. Delayed exogenous feeding reduced the growth performance of juvenile shrimp but access to a stable, high quality diet improved it, promoting a faster development, and a superior fatty acid profile. These findings indicate a compensatory role induced by a high nutritional quality trophic scenario. Although none of the trophic scenarios to which P. varians was exposed to in the present study led to irreversible damage, trophic conditions pre-metamorphosis can shape post-metamorphosis growth performance.
keywords
DECAPOD CRUSTACEANS; PRESSURE TOLERANCE; METAMORPHOSIS; TEMPERATURE; PERFORMANCE; SURVIVAL; DENSITY; SYSTEM; GROWTH
subject category
Fisheries
authors
Calado, R; Vercesi, K; Freitas, E; Ricardo, F; Santos, SAO; Domingues, MR; Hayd, L
our authors
acknowledgements
KV was supported by the Foundation of Support to Development, Education, Science, and Technology (FUNDECT) from the state of Mato Grosso do Sul (Brazil) within project number 23/200.755/2014. The authors acknowledge financial support to CESAM by FCT/MCTES (UIDP/50017/2020 +UIDB/50017/2020 +LA/P/0094/2020), through national funds. We also thank the financial support from FCT and Portugal 2020 to the Portuguese Mass Spectrometry Network (LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-402-022125).