Question

Micheal wants to know what are important crustaceans and why they are important?

Answer 1

Crustaceans are the important and largest group of arthopods covering wide range of organisms such as shrimps, crabs, lobsters, crayfish, barnacles. The crustaceans are free living to parasitic to terrestrial.

The subphylum crustacea is divided into 5 classes and the important organisms among them are as follows:

a. class cephalocarida: Primitive Shrimps form an important group under the class

b. class branchiopoda: brineshrimp, water flea

c. class malacostraca: lobsters, cray fish, krill, crabs

d. class maxillopoda: barnacles, copepods

e. class remipedia: Earlier primitive crustaceans

Importance of  crustaceans are:

• Crustaceans are important because shrimps, prawns, crabs , lobsters are used as a source of food and important economically for many countries by exporting the food sources
• They form the greatest biomass of any species on earth
• The planktonic crustaceans form a major source of food for higher aquatic organisms stabilizing link in the food web between primary producers and consumers. Eg. copepods, waterfleas
• crustaceans help in recycling nutrients by maintaing detritus food chain.Eg. Saduria, Dikerogammarus species
• Crustaceans also help in cleaning of coastal water. Eg. Gammarus
• They also form bait for farm fishes.Eg. Pontogammarus robustoides
• Their foods form an important diet of man with high nutritive value.
• Few crustaceans also help in pollination. Eg. Crabs
• These are used as dietary for poultry farms
• Blue crab provide livelihood to the coastal communities of Gulf of Mexico