Anaerobic Survival of the CrustaceansCorophium Volutator, C. ArenariumandTanais Chevreuxi

Abstract

The overriding metabolic advantages of aerobic as compared with anaerobic respiration have resulted in its use by the majority of multicellular organisms. However, in some habitats oxygen is limiting to such an extent that anaerobic respiration becomes a necessity for survival. It has frequently been demonstrated that the extent of anaerobiosis depends, obviously, on the degree of oxygenation of the environment (see reviews by von Brand, 1944, 1945; Beadle, 1961). Hence, not only are there entirely anaerobic organisms but many other organisms exist which, in times of anoxic stress, are able to undergo a partial, or facultative, anaerobiosis. Lindeman (1942) discovered that, at low temperature, aquatic chironomid larvae could survive the entire winter anaerobically in the anoxic hypolimnion of freshwater lakes. Similarly, but to a lesser extent, pond-living crayfish of the genus Cambarus are more resistant to low oxygen concentration than stream-living individuals (Park, 1945). Walshe (1948) has also been able to establish a similar relationship in a group of stream and ditch dwelling chironomid larvae.