Effects of low salinity on juvenile pink shrimp Farfantepenaeus paulensis (Perez-Farfante 1967, Crustacea)

It is of paramount importance to study salinity tolerance of commercially important crustaceans, such as the pink shrimp Farfantepenaeus paulensis to determine possible mortality causes in the wild and in aquaculture in oligohaline waters. The aim of this study was to determine the lethal salinity concentration (LC50) for juvenile pink shrimp F. paulensis and measure its oxygen consumption and ammonia excretion at different salinity levels. Shrimp of two length classes (49.4 +/- 4.3 and 78.5 +/- 5.5 mm) were placed in 10-L containers and exposed to salinity levels of 35, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10 and 5. The experiments were tripled, with seven shrimp in each container. The average lethal concentration (LC50s) for an exposure of 24 h was 13.33 (11.26-15.78) and 10.26 (8.60-12.64), respectively, for the two classes of juveniles. For an exposure of 48 h, LC50s were 12.71 (10.68-15.12) for the larger animals and 9.20 (7.34-11.52) for the smaller ones. There was an inverse relationship between salinity and rates of oxygen consumption and ammonia excretion. The average reduction in specific oxygen consumption in salinities 20, 25 and 30 showed a decrease in metabolic rate of 63, 80 and 82%, respectively, in relation to salinity level 0. The same occurred for the averages of ammonia excretion at salinity levels of 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35, which represented low metabolic rates of 57, 61, 70, 71 and 74% respectably in relation to salinity level 0.