Oxygen consumption of the freshwater crab Elamenopsis kempi (Chopra and Das, 1930) from the Garmat-Ali river, Iraq

The rate of oxygen consumption of the subtidal hymenosomatid crab Elamenops is kempi, was studied from February 1988-December of the same year. The exp eriments were conducted by a Gilson respirometer over a wide temperature ra nge (15-35 degrees C), with the aim of estimating the individual oxygen con sumption. Individual rate of oxygen consumption increased with increasing b ody mass at all temperatures for males, females and ovigerous females. The mean rate of oxygen consumption over the temperature range studied for the males varied from 1.20-22.38 mu l O-2 ind(-1) h(-1), for the females from 2 .05-20.73 and for the ovigerous females from 5.07-27.31 mu l O-2 ind(-1) h( -1). The metabolic rate of the males ranged from 0.130-0.63, of the females from 0.35-1.034 and of the ovigerous females from 0.309-1.096 mu l O-2 mg( -1) h(-1). The overall Q(10) value was 1.92. The males were thermally sensi tive at 15-25 degrees C and compensate at 20-30 degrees C, whereas the fema les, both non-ovigerous and ovigerous were compensating at all temperatures .