Body Size and Oxygen Consumption Rate of the Oval Squid Sepioteuthis lessoniana

Abstract

Oxygen consumption rates of the young oval squid Sepioteuthis lessoniana (0.033-27.54 g BW) reared from eggs and those captured from wild population were investigated on an individual basis by both water bottle and flow-through methods. Oxygen consumption rate (R in ml oxygen/ind./h) increased linearly with increase in BW (W in g) expressed as R=aWb For squid smaller than about 2 g BW, there was not a significant difference in the values of the exponent b and the coefficient a between Ks measured respectively by water bottle and flow-through methods. The R was not significantly different from each other between squid reared from eggs and captured from the sea. The exponent 6 and coefficient a for young squids ranged from 0.741 to 0.944 and from 0.697 to 0.966, respectively. There was a tendency for the exponent to change with growth, such as b for the squids less than 0.5 g BW being 0.944, while for the squids over 0.5 g was 0.813, respectively. This suggests that R in very early life stage tends to increase more rapidly with growth than in older stages. © 1991, The Japanese Society of Fisheries Science. All rights reserved.