ONTOGENIC CHANGES IN THE DIET OF JUVENILE BROWN TIGER PRAWNS PENAEUS-ESCULENTUS

The diets of small (2 to 5 mm carapace length, CL), medium (9 to 12 mm CL) and large (15 to 18 mm CL) Penaeus esculentus were determined for prawns collected from the same seagrass bed. The most common food typ es included copepods, decapods, ostracods, gastropods, diatoms, filame ntous algae and seagrass. The diversity of food types increased with p rawn size and included pronounced changes in the use of plant material . Plants are essential for the health of P. esculentus juveniles and t hey appeared to change their diet progressively from diatoms to filame ntous algae to seagrass as they grew. P. esculentus juveniles are foun d, almost exclusively, on seagrass beds; feeding on seagrass and its e piphytes provides further evidence of the dependence of P. esculentus on their preferred habitat.