Population structure, fecundity and embryo loss of the sea grass shrimp Latreutes pymoeus (Decapoda: Hippolytidae) at Inhaca Island, Mozambique

Latreutes pymeous is a poorly studied tropical and sub-tropical shrimp species that mainly lives on sea grass beds. Samples were collected from sea grass beds of I Inhaca Island, Mozambique, during August 2005 at neap/ spring and low/high tides. Specimens were identified, sexed, counted and morphometric measurements were made. Ovigerous females were classified as small (carapace length (CL): 2.7-3.2 mm), medium (CL: 3.3-3.8 mm) and large (CL: 3.9-4.4 mm). Embryo masses were carefully removed from the pleopods with forceps, eggs staged and counted. On average, about 20% more males were found than females (0.64 +/- 0.25 and 0.56 +/- 0.28 ind m(-2), respectively), but males were significantly smaller (2.25 +/- 0.32 and 2.60 +/- 0.47 mm CL for males and females, respectively). At 3.1 mm CL at least 50% of the females found carried embryos in the pleopods. Average (+/- SD) brood size increased significantly with female length (76 18, 133 64 and 205 61, for small, medium and large ovigerous females). The number of embryos decreased significantly over the incubation period for each size-class of the shrimp. Brood loss from embryonic Stage I to Stage IV for small, medium and large shrimp were 19.8%, 36.5% and 41.8%, respectively. Although an increase in brood loss was observed with increasing shrimp size, senescence did not seem to occur since larger shrimps carried a higher number of embryos and negative allometry was not recorded. Mean embryo volume, in the same development stage, was not significantly different among the small, medium and large shrimp, increasing significantly from 0.014 mm(3) to 0.029 mm(3) from the First to last embryonic stages.