Rearing European brown shrimp (Crangon crangon, Linnaeus1758): a review on the current status and perspectives for aquaculture.

The European brown shrimp, Crangon crangon, is a highly valued commercial
species fished in the north-eastern Atlantic, especially the North Sea. The shrimp
fisheries are mainly coastal and exert high pressures on the local ecosystems,
including estuaries. The culture of the species provides an alternative to supply a
niche market (large live/fresh shrimps) in a sustainable manner. However, after
more than a century of biological research on this species, there is still little
knowledge on its optimal rearing conditions. C. crangon remains a difficult species
to keep alive and healthy for an extended period of time in captivity. This
review is based on a comprehensive literature search and reflects on the current
status of experimental rearing techniques used for this species, identifies the problems
that compromise the closing of the life cycle in captivity and provides examples
on how these problem issues were solved in the culture of commercial
shrimp species or other crustaceans. The ability to consistently produce highquality
offspring could initiate the commercial production of this valuable
shrimp. A further advantage of the ability to consistently produce high-quality
offspring of this species would facilitate research on the development of new bioassays
with this ecologically and economically important species in a wide variety
of biochemical and physiological studies.