Sexual dimorphism and associated population characteristics in the benthopelagic shrimp Pasiphaea sivado (Crustacea: Caridea: Pasiphaeidae)

Abstract

Morphological and size dimorphism between genders of the benthopelagic shrimp Pasiphaea sivado are reported for the first time in the present work. All five pleopod protopods of females are thinner and more elongated than the male pleopod protopods, which in turn are anteriorly rounded and have robust shapes. The shape variability of the second pleopod protopods was also analysed using geometric morphometrics techniques which clearly differentiated between the thinner, elongated shape of the females and the robust shape of males. An important application of the observations of sexual dimorphism in pleopod shape in adult P. sivado is, from now on, the ability to quickly assess the gender of individuals when fisheries and population biology studies are carried out in the field unaided by a magnifying. A critical size from which the population sex ratio biases changed from female to male dominance was found in all studied western Mediterranean populations of P. sivado. This critical size different and became progressively smaller from populations in the Alboran Sea to populations in the Catalan Sea. Concerning sex ratio, no significant tendency of gender segregation was found across the bathymetric distribution range of the species, suggesting that this species does not perform differential depth distribution by gender.