Growth of cultured Octopus mimus (Cephalopoda, Octopodidae)
Introduction
A short life span and a semelparous reproductive strategy are probably the main differences between the octopus and the other large inhabitants of the Northern Chilean littoral rocky ecosystem (Cortez, 1995). Octopods also have a great capacity to catch their prey having a metabolism that allows high growth rates (O'Dor and Wells, 1987; Cortez et al., 1995). The growth of these animals is influenced by biotic and abiotic factors, the most important being feeding and variation of temperature (Van Heukelem, 1979; Mangold, 1983a; Forsythe and Van Heukelem, 1987).
Detailed information about growth exists for many incirrate octopod species and for Octopus vulgaris in particular (Nixon, 1966, Nixon, 1969; Mangold and Boletzky, 1973; Guerra, 1979; Mangold, 1983b; Forsythe and Van Heukelem, 1987). However, all aspects of the growth of Octopus mimus Gould 1852 are practically unknown. Knowledge of its life cycle would improve understanding of the role of this species in the littoral ecosystem of the North of Chile, and also facilitate the management of its fishery, which yields between 3000 and 6000 tonnes per year (Cortez, 1995).
The interest in commercial rearing of octopods or their potential use as experimental models has led researchers to attempt the culture of several species of incirrate octopods (Itami et al., 1963; Forsythe and Hanlon, 1980, Forsythe and Hanlon, 1981; Hanlon and Hixon, 1982; Hanlon, 1983a, Hanlon, 1983b; Boletzky and Hanlon, 1983; Hanlon and Forsythe, 1985; Boletzky, 1989; Boyle, 1991; Villanueva, 1994, Villanueva, 1995). In the only published study about the culture of O. mimus (Wolf and Pérez, 1992), the authors estimated growth of this species by applying a modified version of the von Bertalanffy growth model (Pauly and Gaschütz, 1979) which accounts for oscillation of growth. However, this growth model does not give a suitable description of O. mimus growth nor probably of any octopod species (Mangold, 1983a). Previous studies with O. vulgaris, a species of similar characteristics to O. mimus (Cortez, 1995), revealed considerable problems with culturing through early stages of development (Itami et al., 1963, Villanueva, 1995; Mangold and Boletzky, 1973; Imamura, 1990; Hamazaki et al., 1991). Recently, Villanueva (1994), Villanueva (1995)showed that such problems with planktonic paralarvae of O. vulgaris associated with the diet and rearing conditions decrease at later stages of development, when the animals are able to adapt to the benthic habitat. The aim of this paper is to estimate growth rates in juveniles and to study the influence of sex on the growth of O. mimus.
Section snippets
Materials and methods
The present study was undertaken from September to December 1991. Specimens were collected by snorkelling off Iquique (Fig. 1) at water depth less than 15 m, at a site situated approximately 400 m from the rearing tanks.
The animals were maintained in an open sea water system composed of eight rectangular fibre-glass tanks of 1000 l each. The water flow for each tank was constant at 2 l per minute. The tanks were placed outside and were partially covered to decrease the effect of exposure to the
Growth
Weight and instantaneous relative growth rate (G) for ten days intervals for each specimen are summarised in Table 2. Fig. 2 illustrates the increase of BW throughout time of the three smallest specimens (numbers 1–3, Table 2).
The two smallest specimens of O. mimus grew from 40 to 45.3 g to an average of 558 g in 70 days at 19.6°C. The specimen of 48.9 g reached 593 g in 60 days at the same temperature (Table 2).
Growth was exponential for the first 40 days of culture with a mean G of 5.33% of body
Rearing conditions
The rearing studies presented in this paper show, for the first time, that sub adult O. mimus over 40 g BW can be maintained under controlled conditions. This species can be maintained with just a few prey species in open systems. It should not be difficult to use closed systems if the quality of water is good. The growth and survival rates observed at temperature ranging from 17.1°C to 22.9°C suggest that this species could be raised to obtain adult specimens. In fact, Cortez (1995)reported the
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Dr. Earl G Dawe (Fisheries and Oceans, St John's Canada), Dr. Graham G. Pierce (University of Aberdeen, UK), Dr. Sigurd von Boletzky (Laboratory Arago, France) and two anonymous referees for their comments and valuable suggestions on this paper. We also wish to express our thanks to the SCUBA divers J. Corrotea, C. Gaete and W. Cotton for their help in sample collection.
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