A Study of the Behavior of Pinaeid Shrimp under Controlled Laboratory Conditions

Abstract

One of the major objectives of this research project was to fully describe the types of behavior exhibited by the Gulf shrimp, Penaeus setiferus and Penaeus aztecus, under controlled laboratory conditions. An experiment dealing with the effects of crowding on short-term behavior showed that the major source of variance in behavior was the social density of the shrimp, rather than the spacial density. The second series of experiments attempted to answer the question of whether or not the shrimp shows inherent aggregation, or if aggregation under natural conditions is a factor of the environment. The results of this experiment, carried out under controlled laboratory conditions, showed that under this limited series of experiments the shrimp showed no tendency to aggregate.