Biologia reprodutiva de Neocallichirus maryae Karasawa, 2004 (Crustacea, Decapoda, Callichiridae) na praia de Mangue Seco, Igarassu, Pernambuco, Brasil

Abstract

The present work aims to study the reproductive biology of the ghost shrimp Neocallichirus maryae Karasawa, 2004, on the Mangue Seco beach, north coast of Pernambuco. Thus, intending to contribute with unprecedented information to fill this gap. Collections were carried out, monthly, at Mangue Seco beach during low tide, between September 2018 and October 2019. The females were collected using a manual suction pump and sieves. In the laboratory, the abundance of ovigerous females (OF) in relation to non-ovigerous females, the length of the cephalothorax (CF), size of sexual maturation, reproductive period, embryonic development stage, fecundity, egg volume and reproductive effort (RE) were analyzed. A total of 358 females were collected, 48 OF and 301 non-ovigerous females. The CF of non-ovigerous females ranged from 5.98 mm to 17.97 mm with an average of 13 mm (± 1.976), however for OF the measures ranged from 9.37 mm to 16.48 mm with 13.34 (± 1.970); defining the size of the sexual maturity as the FC measurements between 9mm and 9.5mm. The occurrence of reproductive period was observed during the dry season (between December / 2018 to March / 2019), which is expected as a standard for decapods. The 3 stages of embryonic development were found during the reproductive period. Fertility ranged from 1057 to 3784, with an average of 2001.4 ± 815.04. The number of eggs increased significantly following the size of the females. The average egg volume was 0.157 mm³ (± 0.021) for stage I, 0.091mm³ (± 0.038) for stage II and 0.065 mm³ (± 0.026) for stage III. The average ER was 0.0601 ± 0.241. With dry weight of the egg mass representing only 0.78% of the dry weight of the females. The aspects about reproductive biology studied for the population of N. maryae follow similar patterns to the other studies done for the group of ghost shrimp worldwide. Finally, this study brings new information about Neocallichirus maryae, filling in some gaps and enabling future research on the species.