1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1.1. Introduction the Brachyuran Crabs
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1.1. Introduction The brachyuran crabs are most fascinating organisms among decapod crustaceans. They have broad hard carapace, massive chelate legs, bend abdomen and exhibit high degrees of adaptation to the environment. They show pelagic, benthic, intertidal, burrowing and terrestrial modes of life. These crabs found distributed in deep oceans as well as in shallow brackish backwater, estuaries and tidal pools and fresh water bodies. Decapod crustaceans are very common invertebrates inhabiting the marine environment. The diversity of the brachyuran crabs were abundant in littoral and deep sea regions (Kathirvel, 2008a and b). The life history, nutritive value, migration, feeding, growth and maturation, physiology and breeding behaviour of decapod crustaceans are of great interest to biologists. In tropical water several types of breeding patterns exhibit in crustaceans. They are continuous breeders breed around the year, discontinuous breeders in relation to lunar phases, biannual breeders have two spawning periods in a year and annual breeders have one single breeding season in a year. The breeding pattern of the crabs of the same habitat varies in the season and may be discontinuous or biannual or annual breeders (Boolootian et al., 1959). The crabs belonging to the same species inhabiting different habitats have different types of breeding cycle (Rahaman, 1967). In crabs, the reproductive organs play an important role 2 in the synthesis and storage of organic materials needed for the production of gametes (Boolootian, 1965). The “reproductive cycle” includes the series of events from the time of activation, growth and gametogenesis in the gonad to spawning of the gametes and recession of gonadal activity to a relatively substained resting level, until the gonad is once again activated. In continuous breeders the duration of reproductive cycle takes a period of few weeks or several months, and in annual breeders the reproductive cycle occurs during the whole period of the year (Giese, 1959). The hepatopancreas in crustaceans is otherwise called as midgut gland, liver, digestive gland, hepatic caecum and hepatopancreatic caecum (Van Weel, 1970). The accumulation of food materials takes place in the hepatopancreas. This involves taking food from the environment and absorbing them in it. During the reproductive cycle, changes are seen in the accumulation of food materials in the storage organ, hepatopancreas. The series of changes which have taken place in the hepatopancreas is known as nutritive cycle and it can be correlated with reproductive cycle. Reproductive and nutritional cycles, sex ratio and fecundity of crustaceans have been reported by many workers (Rahaman, 1967; Chandran, 1968; Diwan and Nagabhushnam, 1974). In decapod crustaceans, the ovaries are located either dorsally or dorsolaterally to the gut. The paired ovary is distinctly connected by a central bridge of ovarian 3 tissue assuming the shape of the letter „H‟ (Ryan, 1967; Ezhilarasi, 1978). The spermatheca looks like an inverted conical flask and is attached to the ovary at its mid portion of the posterior arm on each side through small duct. The maturation of ovaries has been classified into various stages. The colour of the ovary has been taken as a main criterion for classification. The ovary has been divided into four stages (Radhakrishnan, 1979) five stages (Rajendran, 1990) six stages (Ezhilarasi, 1978) and seven stages (Du Preez and Mclachlan, 1984b). The testes are paired organs which are also medially interconnected by a commissure so as to give the shape of the letter „H‟. The testis leads into long duct known as vasdeferens which can be divided into three functional regions namely anterior vasdeferens, mid vasdeferens and posterior vasdeferens (Joshi and Khanna, 1982) The nutritional and reproductive cycle of decapod crustaceans show significant relationship. A clear cut inverse relationship is exhibited by the hepatic index to that of the gonadal index. A drop in the hepatic index, coinciding with or just preceding the rise of gonad index, suggests the possible transport of nutrients from hepatopancreas to gonad during maturation of gametes (Chandran et al., 1980; Rajendran, 1990). In crabs, a slight deviation in the sex ratio may be due to migration of ovigerous females from deep water to offshore region during intensive breeding periods. It is a factors that the female decapod crustaceans known to produce more eggs as they grow larger. The total numbers of 4 eggs increase as length or width of carapace of the crab increases (Wenner et al., 1987). The reproductive cycle of marine invertebrates seems to be influenced by exogenous and endogenous factors (Giese, 1959). Among the exogenous factors, the habitat is one of the important factors that play a major role in the breeding behaviour of marine organisms (Prasad and Tampi, 1953). The latitude is another factor which influences the reproductive cycle of tropical species (Pearse, 1965). The impact of temperature on the reproductive cycle was reported by Giese (1959). Orton (1920) stating that the marine animals of temperate and cold waters reproduce seasonally while the animals of tropical waters breed throughout the year. The changes in pH, salinity and DO of water influence the breeding of marine animals (Pillai and Nair, 1971; Joel and Raj, 1980; Rajendran, 1990). The rainfall, photoperiod and nutrients of water also influence the breeding activity of animals (Subramanian, 1963; Nagabhushnam and Faroogii, 1981). The biochemical changes in relation to reproductive and nutritional cycles of crustaceans have been reported by many workers (Adiyodi, 1969; Adiyodi and Adiyodi, 1972; Rahaman, 1977). The fluctuation of biochemical components in gonad, hepatopancreas, muscle and heamolymph during the ovarian maturation strongly suggests their possible utilization during vitellogenesis (Kerr, 1969). The fact that the occurrence of very little biochemical reserves in the gonad prior to the 5 development of gametes formation suggests that there is the mobilization of organic material from the hepatopancreas to gonad. Further the fluctuation in biochemical component of the hepatopancras during the maturation of the gonad, strongly suggests the possible utilization of resources from the hepatopancreas (Pillai and Nair, 1973b). The biochemical component lipid and carbohydrate may be transferred from the hepatopancreas to the gonad as the animal matures but protein may be synthesized in the gonad (Rahaman, 1977). The nature of protein, sub units of protein with molecular weight and fatty acid composition varied during reproductive cycle (Wolin et al., 1973; Hoq et al., 2003). The haemolymph proteins of marine invertebrates are unique in composition, as they do not contain immunoglobulin or albumin like protein. Studies on the biochemical composition and enzymes in the haemolymph of crab during moulting cycle have been undertaken by many workers (Adiyodi, 1969; Bedford, 1972; Kulkarni, 1983). Periodic shedding of the exoskeleton in crustaceans is called moulting. Life of crab consists of alternating periods of premoult, moult, post moult and intermoult. The crustaceans never achieve stability, moulting occurs at intervals throughout adult life. The periods between moults are known as molts. Changes occur in the size and biochemical composition of crab throughout the moulting cycle (Heath and Barnes, 1970). The disease is mainly caused by microbes. Micro organisms are living things, larger in number, extreme diverse groups, lumped together 6 on the basis of one property. They are so small that they cannot been seen without the use of a microscope. It includes viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa and some algae. They are present everywhere on earth which includes biota, soil, water and atmosphere. Fungi are filametous, non-photosynthetic eukaryotic microorganisms that have a heterotrophic nutrition. They are two types of heterotrophic fungi namely saprophytes and parasites. Saprophytes depend on dead organic matter whereas parasites live on or in the living bodies of other organism. In fungi reproduction is of three kinds, vegetative, asexual and sexual. Bacteria are the exceedingly small unicellular prokaryotic cells whose single chromosome is not contained within a nuclear membrane. They live in the bodies of other organisms and their dead remains. The existences of microbes in various tissues of marine crabs have been reported by many workers (Childers et al., 1996; Leano, 2002; Kannathasan and Rajendran, 2010a; Najiah et al., 2010). Though works are available on reproductive and nutritional cycles of marine crustaceans, no work has been carried out on the economically important edible crabs in Nagapattinam coast. Hence the present investigation is aimed to study the physic-chemical parameters, survey, reproductive and nutritional cycles of marine crab Charbdis natator. 7 1.2. Objective of the study The present study has been planned with the following objects. ♦ To study the physico chemical characteristrics of marine environment of Nagapattinam coast. ♦ To study the biodiversity of brachyuran crabs collected from off shore, littoral and tidal zone in the study area. ♦ To isolate genomic DNA from tissues of Charybdis natator and to amplify the DNA by using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). ♦ To analyse the 16S rRNA, 18S rRNA and COI gene sequences using BLAST. ♦ To construct the phylogenetic tree using MEGA-4 and find out the phylogeny of the crab. ♦ To study the morphometric