Abstract
IN Britain Palaemonetes varians, variety microgenitor, commonly inhabits only saline water around the coastline and has never been recorded in fresh water. The prawn is, however, very abundant in water of extremely low salinity in the Cardiff area, where it occurs in the drainage ditches of farm-land adjacent to an area of salt-marsh1. In the summer months both the salt-marsh and the farm-land waterways swarm with larval prawns. The P. varians of these two regions are morphologically identical but differ physiologically, those from the latter habitat being in some way better suited for life in a low salinity environment. When in water of low salinity (such as that contained in the ditches traversing the cultivated area) they show a much smaller expenditure of metabolic energy (as measured by the respiratory rate) than those from the neighbouring, highly saline marsh pools2.
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LOFTS, B. Relationship between Blood Concentration and Environmental Salinity in Palaemonetes varians (Leach). Nature 178, 1003 (1956). https://doi.org/10.1038/1781003a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1781003a0
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