The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	Growth of grass shrimp, palaemonetes pugio, in a contaminated and an uncontaminated site
Author:	Bhan, Suruchi
View Online:	njit-etd1997-043 (xiii, 65 pages ~ 2.8 MB pdf)
Department:	Department of Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Environmental Science
Degree:	Master of Science
Program:	Chemical Engineering
Document Type:	Thesis
Advisory Committee:	Weis, Judith S. (Committee chair) Trattner, Richard B. (Committee member) Caffrey, Paula (Committee member)
Date:	1997-05
Keywords:	Estuarine animals--Physiology. Palaemonetes. Estuarine pollution--New Jersey.
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	Previous experiments have found that grass shrimp, Palaemonetes pugio, from a contaminated site, Piles Creek (PC). in Linden. New Jersey, are larger than those from a relatively pristine reference site, Sheepshead Creek, located in Tuckerton (T), New Jersey. This study investigated the possibility that PC conditions provide more food for the shrimp, possibly by being a eutrophic environment. thus allowing for greater growth. or that salinity, toxicants, or other factors at. PC stimulate growth. The current experiment indicated that PC conditions do not foster greater growth for the shrimp than T conditions and that PC shrimp are not inherently faster growers. In fact. I shrimp grew more when placed in T conditions. Additional experiments showed that PC shrimp do not grow more at a higher salinity. However. the opposite is found in the field. It can be concluded that inherent factors in PC are not responsible for the larger grass shrimp sizes at PC.