Reproduction of Cubaris murina (Crustacea: Isopoda) under laboratory conditions and its use in ecotoxicity tests

Abstract

Reproduction of the isopod Cubaris murina was studied in the laboratory in order to observe the offspring number per brood, the number and duration of the incubation periods, and the influence of repeated mating on number of young per brood. An experiment was conducted with two different groups: female/male pairs and females that were isolated after mating. No significant difference was found between the two reproductive female groups for the mean number of young per brood (x = 25) and the duration of the incubation periods (x = 17 days). One mating was enough for at least five broods, with no reduction in brood size. There was no significant difference between the number of adult males and females. Low-density cultures had a significantly higher growth rate compared to high-density cultures. Furthermore, the experimental results for optimization isopod culture conditions for terrestrial ecotoxicity testing are reported.