The trials and tribulations of working with Americamysis bahia : A mysid success story.

Fox, M., and Maunder, R., Scymaris Ltd., Brixham

The mysid shrimp, Americamysis bahia has a reputation of being a difficult species to work with. They are cannibalistic, easily stressed, can have variable fecundity and cultures can unexpectedly crash. Mysid shrimp studies are used in regulatory ecotoxicology in both the USA and Europe. In Europe, if a plant protection product (PPP) has an insecticidal mode of action (MOA) then the acute toxicity of an additional arthropod is required. This obligation can be satisfied by A. bahia, as well as any subsequent chronic testing if required. We decided to investigate the feasibility of mysid shrimp testing at our laboratory and after numerous initial challenges over the past two and a half years we have started to reap the rewards of our hard work and determination.

Setting up a healthy and fecund laboratory mysid population was our first hurdle. We imported the mysids from an establish and reputable supplier in the United States.

The population was healthy and sustained itself, however we struggled to consistently produce a large number of offspring for studies when we first began. After approximately 6 months of trial and error we can now consistently produce an excess of 3000 offspring per day. Food and environment were the main factors in our successes.