CARCINUS AESTUARII AS BIO- INDICATOR OF ESTUARINE ECOSYSTEMS HEALTH

Marsilda QYLI (MEMAJ), Valbona ALIKO

Abstract

Several organisms serve as biological indicators for assessing various ecosystems’ health. Different chemical compounds found in the environment such as copper, chloroform, and adrenaline can induce to the crustaceans an adaptive response by producing more Crustacean Hyperglycemic Hormone (CHH) by the X organ and sinus gland (XO-SG) complex located in the eyestalks. Even though the above-mentioned chemical compounds provoke stress in the species organism, the abiotic factors have the same effects too. They both can increase the hemolymph glucose level, affect the total hemocyte count (THC), and the differential hemocyte count (DHC), and cause the destabilization of the lysosome membrane (decrease of NRRT, p<0.05). In the long-term, stressors will adversely impact the C. aestuarii health, compromise reproduction, and the general population health of this species. The Crustacean Hyperglycemic Hormone (CHH) is a proteinic hormone that intermediates the whole physiological process at the molecular level. It represents an open reading frame sequence of 429 base pairs, responsible for the coding of a 142-aminoacid protein with a signaling peptide of 26 amino acids, followed by a peptide attached to the CHH precursor of 40 amino-acids, and the mature peptide of 72 amino acids and it results by the first determination based on a high similarity (98.6%) with the CHH peptide from C. maenas compared with CHHs from Brachyura infraorder.

Pages: 556 - 564