Oxygen consumption of the freshwater crab Elamenopsis kempi (Chopra and Das, 1930) from the Garmat-Ali river, Iraq

Abstract

The rate of oxygen consumption of the subtidal hymenosomatid crab Elamenopsis kempi, was studied from February 1988-December of the same year. The experiments were conducted by a Gilson respirometer over a wide temperature range (15-35°C), with the aim of estimating the individual oxygen consumption. Individual rate of oxygen consumption increased with increasing body mass at all temperatures for males, females and ovigerous females. The mean rate of oxygen consumption over the temperature range studied for the males varied from 1.20- 22.38 µl O₂ ind^-1 h^-1, for the females from 2.05-20.73 and for the ovigerous females from 5.07-27.31 µl O₂ ind^-1 h^-1. The metabolic rate of the males ranged from 0.130-0.63, of the females from 0.35-1.034 and of the ovigerous females from 0.309 -1.096 µ1 O₂ mg^-1 h^-1.The overall Q10 value was 1.92. The males were thermally sensitive at 15-25°C and compensate at 20-30°C, whereas the females, both non-ovigerous and ovigerous were compensating at all temperatures.