Ecological Relevance of Hemolymph Total Protein Concentration in Seven Unrelated Crustacean Species from Different Habitats Measured Predictively by a Density-Salinity Refractometer
In recent years, blood metabolites have been investigated as a tool for monitoring physiological condition in wild or cultured crustaceans exposed to different environmental conditions. Blood protein levels fluctuate with changes in environmental and physiological conditions and play fundamental roles in the physiology of crustaceans from O2 transport to reproduction up to stress responses. Proteins are major contributors to hemolymph density, and the present study correlates the easy and low cost measure of hemolymph density by a density-salinity refractometer with the total protein concentration, measured with a colorimetric method. Moreover, the study evaluates the accuracy of the relationship and provides a conversion factor from hemolymph density to protein in seven species of crustaceans, representative of taxa far apart in the phylogenetic tree and characterized by different life habits. Measuring serum-protein concentration by using a refractometer can provide a non-destructive field method to assess crustacean populations/species protein-related modifications of physiological state without need of costly laboratory facilities and procedures. 1. Introduction In recent years blood metabolites have been investigated as a tool for monitoring physiological condition in wild or cultured crustaceans exposed to different environmental conditions [1–3]. Hemocyanin is the major hemolymph constituent (>60%); the remaining proteins (in order of concentration) include coagulogen, apohemocyanin, hormones, and lipoproteins. Blood protein levels fluctuate with changes in environmental and physiological conditions and play fundamental roles in the physiology of crustaceans from O2 transport to reproduction up to stress responses [4–9]. In fact, moulting, reproduction, nutritional state, infection, hypoxia, and salinity variations are the major factors affecting the relative proportions and total quantities of the hemolymph proteins [10–12]. The shrimp immune system response is largely based on proteins. These are involved for example in recognizing foreign particles [13] and in trapping foreign invading organisms and prevent blood loss upon wounding [14, 15]. Recently, Rosas et al. [2] showed that shrimp, are well adapted to use protein as a source of energy and molecules. Blood protein concentration has been found since long to be related to nutritional condition in a number of crustaceans [16, 17]. The concentration of protein in the blood is a possible index of nutritional condition, which decreases in starved prawns and lobsters [1, 18, 19]. The moult cycle
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