Oxygen uptake by embryos and ovigerous females of two intertidal crabs, Heterozius rotundifrons (Belliidae) and Cyclograpsus lavauxi (Grapsidae): scaling and the metabolic costs of reproduction

Abstract

Heterozius rotundifrons and Cyclograpsus lavauxi are crabs of similar size, whose intertidal habitats overlap. They differ in the number and size of their eggs. A 2 g ovigerous H. rotundifrons incubates 675 large yolky eggs (mean single-egg mass 269 microg; egg clutch 9.15 % of mass of female crab; increasing to 435 microg and 13.4 % at hatching). The egg clutch of a 2 g C. lavauxi is larger (15.4 % of crab mass increasing to 18.9 % at hatching) and contains more numerous (28 000), smaller (10.9 microg increasing to 20.3 microg) eggs. The longer development time of the larger eggs (194 days versus 56 days at 15 degrees C) results from a delayed increase in metabolic rate (diapause) and not metabolic scaling. On the basis of the total mass of single eggs, the mass-specific metabolic rates of early embryonic stages of H. rotundifrons (0.72 micromol g(−1)h(−1) for the blastula stage at 15 degrees C) and C. lavauxi (1.13 micromol g(−1)h(−1)) were similar to those of the adult female crabs (0.70 micromol g(−1)h(−1) for H. rotundifrons and 0.91 micromol g(−1)h(−1) for C. lavauxi) and increased 13- and 10-fold, respectively, by the time of hatching. Thus, early embryonic metabolic rates were much lower than expected from their mass, but the metabolic rates of pre-hatching embryos were consistent with the allometry of juveniles and adults. Possible interpretations of this apparently anomalous scaling of embryonic metabolic rates are discussed. Mass-specific rates of oxygen consumption by ovigerous females (including the eggs) of both species were higher than for non-ovigerous crabs, in water and in air, and increased greatly during the development of the eggs. This difference was attributable mainly to the increasing metabolic rates of the attached embryos, but early ovigerous crabs (blastula stage) of both species also demonstrated a small elevation in metabolic rate by the crab itself, i.e. a metabolic cost of egg-bearing. In contrast, the elevation of the rate of oxygen consumption by late ovigerous females of C. lavauxi was less than predicted from the metabolic rate of eggs in a stirred respirometer. This suggests that, towards the end of development in C. lavauxi, the oxygen supply to the eggs in situ may be diffusion-limited by unstirred layers, an effect not observed for the larger eggs and more open egg clutch of H. rotundifrons. The cost of development, in terms of total oxygen consumption of single eggs, from extrusion to hatching, was 3.34 micromol O2 (approximately 1.5 J) for H. rotundifrons and 0.105 micromol O2 (approximately 0.05 J) for C. lavauxi. This 30-fold ratio approximates the ratios of their initial masses and yolk contents but represents only approximately one-third of the initial energy contents of the eggs.