BEAUTYS AND BEASTS: A PORTRAIT OF MARINE SLUGS AQUACULTURE

摘要

Sea slugs are "sludgy" gastropod molluscs, often beautifully coloured and bizarre in shape, which continue to be an attractive subject for marine researchers. Marine slugs belong to a diversified group of animals with a global distribution and occupying a variety of ecological niches (from tide pools to coral reefs, and rocky to sandy or muddy bottoms).The interest on the aquaculture of sea slugs has been mainly driven by their potential use as model organisms for biomedical studies. Fundamental insights into the organization of biological functions were achieved, specially on the fields of neurobiology, learning and behaviour. Presently, the captive culture of the California sea hare (Aplysia californica) under fully controlled conditions, allows a consistent supply of laboratory-reared individuals of known age, reproductive status, and environmentalhistory to be permanently available to fulfil research centres demand.