The Osmotic and Chloride Regulative Capacities of Five Hawaiian Decapod Crustaceans

Abstract

The ionic and osmotic regulative capacities of crustacean species have been described by a number of investigators (see reviews by Krogh, 1939; Robertson, 1953, 1960; Ramsay, 1954; Beadle, 1957; Lockwood, 1962, 1964; Potts and Parry, 1964). The most obvious and general conclusion which can be drawn from these investigations is that the aquatic crustaceans display varying degrees of responses to osmotic stress conditions. The animals' capacities to cope with the osmotic changes in the environment range from non-regulation or osmoconforming (the internal osmotic concentration maintained isosmotic to the environmental concentration) to hypo- and hyperosmotic regulation. The majority of the crustaceans appear to have the ability to regulate to some degree, either osmotically or ionically, within this wide range of regulatory capacities.