Somatosensory cerebral EPs to different speed of skin indentation

Abstract

Multivariate allometric coefficients for kuruma shrimp (Penaeus japonicus) in five geographic locations (N27, N24, TAS, PUT, and TON) off Taiwan were estimated and compared by sex. Eight morphometric measurements were made for each individual. The 1st eigenvector obtained from the covariance matrix of log-transformed data was used to represent the multivariate allometric coefficients. The bootstrap method was used to assess the accuracy of estimates. A dendrogram of five sampling areas was constructed by unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic means (UPGMA) using the angles between five 1st eigenvectors, and a permutation test was used to test if the difference between two multivariate allometric coefficients obtained from different populations/groups was significant. Five areas were clustered into two distinct groups for each sex, the first group included N27, N24, and TAS; the second one included TON and PUT. For each sex, permutation tests indicated that the difference of each within group pairwised multivariate allometric coefficients is not significant and of each between groups pairwised multivariate allometric coefficients is significant. Because (1) five populations considered here are from the same stock and (2) the size of individuals in the second group is smaller than those in the first group, we concluded that the allometry in life stages differs for this species. The difference between multivariate allometric coefficients in both sexes was also tested based on the two second group data sets, and the result showed that the difference between sexes is significant.