STUDY ON THE OTOLITH DEVELOPMENT AND THE FORMATION OF INCREMENTS IN LARVAE AND JUVENILEOF CHUANCHIA LABIOSA

Daily observations were made on the morphological development and the growth in increments of the otolith in larvae and juvenile of Chuanchia labiosa in rearing conditions. The sagitta and the lapillus appeared at 96h and 30min after the fertilization, and the asteriscus first appeared at 16 days post hatching. The shape of the sagitta was rounded at hatching and gradually changed into long elliptical with a long pointy posterior in the end. The lapillus was also rounded at hatching, and changed into a mussel shape at the end of the experiment. Compared to the sagitta and the lapillus, the shape of the asteriscus remained mussel-like and was relatively stable during the development. We compared the data of the radius of the dorsal, ventral, anterior and posterior areas in the sagitta and the lapillus. It showed that in the lapillus the growth of the posterior was faster than that of the anterior (P0.05), and the ventral grew faster than the dorsal (P0.05); in the contrast the dorsal grew faster than the ventral in the sagitta (P0.05). The combined length of the radius of the anterior and the posterior of the sagitta was linearly related to the total length of the larvae and the juvenile, and the same was observed in the lapillus. The first increment on the sagitta and the lapillus appeared on the second day post hatching and from then on there was one new increment formed every day. The number of increments on the lapillus (IL) and the sagitta (IS) showed a linear relationship with the number of days post hatching (D), with the equations of IL=0.9911D-1.0008 (R2=0.9971, n=220, P0.001) and IS=0.9925D-0.10873 (R2=0.9919, n=161, P0.001), respectively. The slopes of the equations were statistically close to 1.0 (P0.05). These results suggested that the number of the otolith increments increased by 1 on a daily basis. Our study contributed to the understanding in the development of C. labiosa, as well as in its early life history in the natural environment.