Paternity assurance during the first breeding period of wild-caught female snow crab

• Main Authors: Urbani, N., Sainte-Marie, B., Sévigny, J.-M., Zadworny, D., Kühnlein, U.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 1997
• Subjects: Snow crabs; Snow crab
• Online Access: https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/articles/gt54kr92d

In the laboratory, recently-molted females often copulate serially with a single male or, provided the opportunity, with several different males. After any number of copulations, and sometimes before the end of a series of successive copulations, eggs are extruded and attached beneath the abdomen where they are incubated for one or two years before hatching. It has been shown by genetic analysis using microsatellite loci that only the last of several males mating under laboratory settings with a female before oviposition fathered the progeny. However, whether female snow crab also mate with several males in the wild and whether it also leads to single paternity remained to be determined.[.]