Survival and condition of hard shell male adult snow crabs (Chionoecetes opilio) during fasting at different temperatures

There is a limited body of information on the impact of starvation in snow crab. In other species, it has been shown to negatively affect survival, protein, lipid, and carbohydrate content of tissues. This study compares survival and condition of unfed hard-shell male adult snow crabs kept at different temperatures during a holding period of 5 months. We observed 7.1-20.7% mortality according to holding temperature. Major changes were observed in tissue composition in both muscle and digestive gland. Fasting mainly resulted in an increase of water content in both tissues due to a decrease in lipid content (digestive gland) and protein content (muscle). Our results suggest that snow crabs can tolerate extended periods of starvation and that temperature has a mitigated effect on their condition. We propose the use of moisture content of digestive gland and possibly muscle as indices of the nutritional status of snow crab, on the basis of their relationship with lipid content (R-2 = 0.67) and protein content (R-2 = 0.65), respectively. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.