Sex-related differences in feeding, growth and morphological characteristics of Pomacea canaliculata

Golden apple snail (Pomacea canaliculata) was included in the first blacklist of invasive alien species in China, has caused incalculable rice production losses in the south China. In this study, we examined the differences in feed efficiency and growth of female and male P. canaliculata through indoor culture experiment, and the morphological characteristic difference was detected by sampling in field. The results showed that the growth speed of females had 2.88 times faster than males after fed separately for 30 days with enough food, which was mainly caused by the higher food intake and conversion efficiency of female P. canaliculata. The growth rate of weight and shell height of females were higher than those of males but without significant difference when they were co-cultured with a definite food supply for 30 days; the ratio of height to width of shell, the ratio of shell height to total weight for the males were significantly greater than those for the females(P<0.001), but the ratio of length to width of shell mouth showed an opposite trend (P<0.001).