Abstract:

At least 60 species of crustaceans are farmed experimentally or commercially, mostly in the tropics and subtropics where species maturation times are shorter than in temperature climates. Over 50 species are kept by aquarists, and several, especially Artemia spp., are widely used as live foods for rearing fish and aquatic invertebrates. However, there has been far less application of genetics in crustacean farming than in finfish and mollusk farming, and very few crustaceans can be regarded as domesticated, the exceptions are a few disease-resistant and selectively-bred strains of farmed penaeid shrimps, color variants of some freshwater crayfish, and selected strains of Artemia franciscana. This is likely to change, but efforts to domesticate crustacean species are often hampered by the technical challenges of closing complex life cycles and coping with aggressive behavior in captivity. This applies particularly to marine species such as lobster and crabs. The development of domesticated breeds can contribute to making crustacean farming more productive, more profitable and, when feasible, less environmentally damaging. New breeding goals are being set for farmed penaeid shrimps, e.g. faster growth, disease resistance and tolerance to environmental stress. It may also be preferable to breed in captivity some species of crustaceans for the aquarium trade, rather than exploiting wild populations. Realizing all these possibilities will require a major research effort.

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Date 1998/09/01

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