RESPONSE OF HAEMOCYTES COUNT AGAINST HEAVY METAL MERCURY IN WHITE LEG SHRIMP Litopenaeus vannamei (Boone, 1931)

As many studies were depicted that, heavy metal has been recognized as a serious environmental concern because of their persistency and tendency to accumulate in organisms and undergo food chain amplification. In aquatic organism, the heavy metal could create more defects while compared to the terrestrial organisms. Hence the present investigation was designed to study the haemocytes count against the heavy metal mercury with various concentration and duration in white leg shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei in various sub-lethal concentration (10% and 30%). The results showed that, the hyalinocytes counts (F=32.704; df=2; p<0.001) were inversely proportional to the concentration of mercury and duration of exposure (10, 20 and 30 days). Both granulocytes (F=171.009; df=2; p<0.001) and semigranulocytes (F=15.221; df=2; p<0.001) were increasing with the concentration of the heavy metal and decreasing trend with extension of exposure duration. It might be due to the fighting against to the heavy metal stress and it may be accommodate during extension exposure duration of heavy metal. Normally, many toxicity studies were employed to know toxicity level in the target organism. In the present study proved that, haemocytes count to be an indicator of toxicity of heavy metal mercury.