Selection of brooders from early maturing freshwater prawns ( Macrobrachium rosenbergii) results in faster growth rates of offspring than in those selected from late maturing prawns

Abstract

In the giant freshwater prawn (GFP), unintentional negative selection may have occurred when farmers recruited brooders from late maturing females instead of from those that matured first (Doyle et al., 1983). In this study, we provided empirical evidence that selection made from early maturing female freshwater prawns yielded offspring that grew faster than did those from females selected from the later maturing batches. Sixteen full sibling families were produced and separately reared. When they reached maturation, gravid females were removed and separately divided into four batches according to time to maturity. Within family selection, with a 10% selection proportion was then performed within each batch. The females were simultaneously mated with males from different families within a batch. Growth comparison of offspring between batches showed that the offspring of the females selected from the first batch were larger in carapace length (CL) and body weight (BW) than those from later batches.