Male morphotypes in freshwater Shrimp Macrobrachium acanthurus (Decapoda, Palaemonidae)

• Grant number: 15/24934-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2016
• End date: February 28, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Biology
• Principal Investigator: Giovana Bertini
• Grantee: Michele Gonçalves de Almeida de Geus
• Host Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Registro. Registro , SP, Brazil

Abstract

There is little systematic information on freshwater decapods at coastal basins of São Paulo state southern coast, where the Ribeira Valley is one of the priority areas of environmental viewpoint. Furthermore, knowledge about the composition, density and/or spatial-temporal distribution of caridean prawn larvae is virtually nonexistent which hinders access to knowledge about the life cycle of the species. So the purpose of this project is to conduct a study in order to interact the larval and adult ecology of caridean estuarine and freshwater from the lower basin of Ribeira de Iguape River, including the Valo Grande channel, municipality of Iguape (SP). This study includes species diversity, abundance and identification of larvae in the plankton through DNA analysis, the association of environmental parameters with the spatial-temporal distribution of the adults and larvae and aspects of population biology. Samplings will be held for twelve months in three areas of the lower Ribeira de Iguape River, using traps and sieves for adults and juveniles and plankton net for larvae. The prawns will be separated by gender and measured for the analysis of population structure. The prawn larvae will be identified at the species level using DNA. To highlight differences in the abundance of prawn larvae and adults among the seasons of year and collection sites, an ANOVA will be conducted, and to associate prawn abundance with environmental parameters will be used multivariate techniques. The results of this project, besides being unpublished, will add data to the little existing amount of knowledge in the region about adults, juvenile and larvae of caridean prawns, which are organisms of high ecological and economic importance.