Controlled experiment
Direct Neocaridina evidence
Wilson, Rickward and Santostefano, 2026. Journal of Evolutionary Biology: voag042.
Source taxon as published: Neocaridina davidi
Study shape: Forty-one one-male, four-female breeding groups produced 1,191 offspring in 75 full-sibling families nested within 37 paternal half-sibling groups. Eighty shrimp from 20 families each completed six alternating control-predator assays; the other 1,111 each completed one treatment-balanced assay for pedigree-based models.
Experimental unit: Repeatedly identified individual for the 80-shrimp six-assay dataset; single individual nested within a full-sibling family and its rearing tank for the 1,111-shrimp quantitative-genetic dataset
Environment: Pet-trade-source offspring raised as separate full-sibling families in recirculating 2.9-litre tanks, then tested in five-minute open-field assays using conspecific water or water previously occupied by green swordtails
Endpoints: track length, activity above 4 cm/s, arena area covered, refuge duration, individual repeatability, additive and family variance, individual-by-environment and genotype-by-environment variation.
What it can support: The fish-water cue produced modest average decreases in track length and activity and increased refuge duration. Individuals differed repeatably, and the pedigree model attributed an estimated 24.3 percent of multivariate phenotypic variance to additive genetic effects while finding no supported variation among individuals or genotypes in cue-response plasticity.
What it cannot support: No fish entered the assay and no capture, injury, feeding, growth, survival or recruitment endpoint was measured. The cue came from one novel fish species and its strength was not an aquarium coexistence exposure. All shrimp came from one pet-trade colony, full siblings shared one rearing tank, only about two dams per sire contributed on average and additive-genetic estimates had high uncertainty. The repeated dataset always began with control, arena water was replaced after ten trials and age varied from 41 to 215 days. The study does not establish fish compatibility, a fixed personality label, a commercial-line heritability or a selection response.
Open the source or open this record in the full research map.
Controlled experiment
Direct Neocaridina evidence
Rickward, Santostefano and Wilson, 2024. Ecology and Evolution 14(2): e11049.
Source taxon as published: Neocaridina heteropoda
Study shape: Individuals were repeatedly measured to separate within-animal and among-animal behavioural variation.
Experimental unit: Repeatedly identified individual
Environment: Repeated laboratory behavioural assays
Endpoints: activity, boldness or refuge-related behaviour, repeatability.
What it can support: Individuals can differ consistently in selected measured behaviours.
What it cannot support: It does not make one short video a personality test or diagnose stress, sex, mating or disease.
Open the source or open this record in the full research map.
System observation or method study
Direct Neocaridina evidence
Zhang et al., 2024. ScienceAsia 50(2): 2024043.
Source taxon as published: Aquarium-market animals printed as Neocaridina denticulata in the title and methods and as Neocaridina denticulata sinensis in parts of the results and discussion; no host diagnostic method or voucher was reported
Study shape: The authors reported 3,000 acclimated animals and destructive sampling of 150 shrimp every six hours. Sixty hepatopancreases per time were intended for three separate tubes of 20, but the sequence tables and heatmap contain only ten RNA-seq libraries distributed 2, 3, 3 and 2 across 06:00, 12:00, 18:00 and 24:00. De novo transcript assembly, pairwise differential-expression screening, annotation enrichment and qRT-PCR for Clk, Cry, Per and Tim were performed.
Experimental unit: The pooled RNA-seq library for transcript comparisons, with unequal 2, 3, 3 and 2 libraries across the four times and no explanation for the two missing intended libraries. The qRT-PCR unit is unresolved because the methods report three groups per time and five biological replicates per group while the figure displays three points per time.
Environment: Market-sourced shrimp acclimated for two weeks in recirculating tap water under a reported 12-hour light and 12-hour dark cycle at a natural daily temperature range of approximately 10 to 18 C, then sampled at 06:00, 12:00, 18:00 and 24:00 after feed had been withheld for at least 48 hours
Endpoints: de novo transcriptome assembly and database annotation, pairwise differential-expression counts, GO and KEGG enrichment labels, putative clock-related transcript annotation, qRT-PCR expression of Clk, Cry, Per and Tim.
What it can support: The study detected hepatopancreas transcripts annotated as Per, Tim, Clk, Cyc, Cry and 5-HT-related sequences and reported time-associated RNA profiles under its combined light, temperature and fasting history. The smallest reported pairwise contrast was 282 differentially expressed unigenes between 06:00 and 24:00. Among the four qRT-PCR targets, only Clk was reported as significantly different across sampling times.
What it cannot support: Sampling time changed together with light state, natural temperature and elapsed fasting history. There was no constant-temperature group, shifted photoperiod, constant-darkness condition, feeding-time treatment, repeated 24-hour cycle or time-randomized cohort, so the design cannot isolate an endogenous circadian rhythm, light effect, temperature effect or feeding-time effect. Tank number, volume, density, allocation, water chemistry, food formula and exact last-feeding time were omitted. The written tissue-pooling method is internally unclear, two of twelve intended sequencing libraries are unexplained and the qRT-PCR denominator conflicts with its figure. Differential-expression screening used raw p less than 0.05 and an absolute log2 fold-change threshold above 1 without a stated false-discovery correction; enrichment methods and cutoffs were incompletely reported. The 12:00 versus 18:00 total is printed as 983, while its 588-up and 350-down components total 938. Putative clock transcripts were assigned by sequence similarity without targeted sequence validation or a functional assay. qRT-PCR reused the transcriptomic sample set, reported one reference gene without efficiency or stability validation and does not provide independent replication. Pathway labels are not measured food intake, digestion, glucose, chitin turnover, molting, immunity, growth or health. The work does not establish a best feeding hour, night-feeding rule, light schedule, fasting schedule, temperature cause or home-care intervention.
Related source material: Official open article and supplement PDF, NCBI BioProject PRJNA832034
Open the source or open this record in the full research map.
Controlled experiment
Direct Neocaridina evidence
Azarm-Karnagh, López Greco and Shafiei Sabet, 2023. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 11: 1091314.
Source taxon as published: Neocaridina davidi
Study shape: Two behavioural experiments each used 70 food-deprived shrimp, with 35 individual trials per playback condition and treatment order randomized across sequential trials.
Experimental unit: Individual trial in one experimental aquarium; aquarium and speaker arrangement were not independently replicated
Environment: Single laboratory test aquarium comparing 20-minute ambient playback near 96.54 dB with broadband playback near 110.40 dB re 1 micropascal over 400 to 2000 Hz
Endpoints: movement speed, horizontal position, feeding latency, food finding, food revisits, feeding distraction.
What it can support: In the tested aquarium, broadband playback changed horizontal distribution and several food-finding and feeding measures compared with ambient playback; total movement speed did not differ between treatments.
What it cannot support: One small-tank sound field cannot identify a safe equipment noise level. Particle motion was not measured, the aquarium was not replicated and divider removal coincided with playback onset for part of the design.
Open the source or open this record in the full research map.
Controlled experiment
Direct Neocaridina evidence
Carvalho-Batista et al., 2023. Nauplius 31: e2023018.
Source taxon as published: Neocaridina davidi
Study shape: Ten shrimp from one sex or reproductive class shared an aquarium offering Java moss, wood, Egeria and rock shelters of about 250 square centimetres each. Shelter positions were varied, and the same group was counted repeatedly during eight 20-minute periods per day for three days.
Experimental unit: Ten-shrimp aquarium group, with five consecutive groups per sex or reproductive class and repeated observations of the same animals across 72 hours
Environment: Fifteen 23-litre laboratory aquarium groups at 23 C under a 12-hour light and 12-hour dark cycle, with red incandescent light used for night observations and no feeding during the 72-hour experiment
Endpoints: overall shelter occupancy, occupancy by shelter type, day and night shelter use, walking and swimming frequency.
What it can support: Across the tested groups, mean shelter use was 82.1 percent per observation, shelter use was higher by day than night, and Java moss was used most overall, followed by wood, while rock was used least.
What it cannot support: Shelter material, shape and structural complexity changed together, so the comparison does not isolate a live-plant, moss-species or complexity effect. The paper does not state a repeated-measures or aquarium-level model for the many observations of the same groups. Animals were not fed during the 72 hours, night observations used a red lamp, and no no-shelter, predator, stress, survival, growth or reproduction outcome was tested. The result does not make one plant required, define an ideal hidden percentage, diagnose stress or prove protection from fish.
Open the source or open this record in the full research map.
Controlled experiment
Direct Neocaridina evidence
Klein, Hess, Schulte-Oehlmann and Oehlmann, 2021. PeerJ 9: e12442.
Source taxon as published: Neocaridina palmata, White Pearl variety as purchased; identity was not independently verified
Study shape: Four material-by-weathering experiments each used eight one-shrimp vessels per concentration at 0.40, 1.00, 2.50, 6.25 or 15.6 g plastic equivalents/L plus medium, DMSO and lethal sodium-chloride controls. Movement was recorded on days 1, 3, 7 and 14. Separate three-run Microtox tests used the same pooled extracts.
Experimental unit: Individual 600 mL beaker containing one shrimp and 200 mL medium for the in vivo response; duplicate 24-hour leachates were combined into one extract per material and weathering condition, so shrimp vessels did not independently replicate leachate preparation
Environment: Adult shrimp held individually for 14 days in 200 mL of reconstituted water with concentrated, particle-filtered extracts from one recycled LDPE material or one starch-blend foil
Endpoints: moved distance, frozen events, daily observed mortality, daily molting, body length, sex, Aliivibrio fischeri luminescence inhibition.
What it can support: The concentrated extracts inhibited bacterial luminescence, but moved distance and frozen events in shrimp showed high individual variation, few isolated differences and no consistent concentration-response across the four material-by-weathering experiments.
What it cannot support: The in vivo treatments were particle-filtered extracts expressed as source-plastic equivalents, not particles, identified chemical doses or aquarium-product exposures. The two leachate duplicates were pooled, extracts were 5000-fold concentrated, the study did not chemically analyze its own mixtures and the lethal sodium-chloride group was excluded from the 896-trajectory analysis. Two locomotor endpoints cannot establish overall safety or absence of harm. The work did not test N. davidi, growth, reproduction, histology, chronic exposure, natural weathering or a home-aquarium threshold. Four raw XLSX supplements were available but could not be audited in this intake because the required workbook runtime was unavailable.
Open the source or open this record in the full research map.
Controlled experiment
Direct Neocaridina evidence
Maciaszek et al., 2021. Animals 11(4): 1071.
Source taxon as published: Neocaridina davidi
Study shape: Groups of three same-morph shrimp were acclimated for one hour and filmed for one hour across shade, colour and pattern choices, usually with eight dish replicates.
Experimental unit: Dish containing three shrimp, not each occupancy observation
Environment: Short laboratory choice trials in circular dishes at 20 to 21 C with printed shade and pattern backgrounds
Endpoints: time in background zones, shade choice, pattern choice, photographic body shade.
What it can support: The tested morph groups preferred darker over lighter backgrounds during the short choice trials, with some morph-specific pattern results.
What it cannot support: The trials did not measure long-term welfare, stress, growth, survival, reproduction or a required aquarium substrate.
Open the source or open this record in the full research map.
Controlled experiment
Direct Neocaridina evidence
Siregar et al., 2021. Antioxidants 10(3): 391.
Source taxon as published: Research-centre animals labelled Neocaridina denticulata; no diagnostic or molecular identification method reported
Study shape: A commercial 28.8 percent imidacloprid formulation was diluted to nominal 0.03125, 0.0625, 0.125, 0.25, 0.5 and 1 ppm for up to 96 hours. The paper describes 20 shrimp in one 200 mL plastic tank per treatment and 12 animals per group for movement, heartbeat and maxilliped-movement endpoints. A separate four-group series placed 24 animals per 500 mL tank, exposed three groups to nominal 1 ppm imidacloprid for 24 hours, then transferred them to fresh water or nominal 0.1 or 1 ppm acetylcholine for three days.
Experimental unit: Exposure tank for treatment assignment, apparently one tank per concentration or rescue group; individual shrimp were later measured in multiwell plates. Repeated video recordings and animal-level measurements do not create independent treatment-tank replication.
Environment: Small plastic exposure tanks using reverse-osmosis water at pH 7.0 to 7.5 after seven days of laboratory holding at 26.5 C
Endpoints: tracked distance and immobilization, image-derived heartbeat, maxilliped movement used as a gill-ventilation proxy, whole-animal oxidative-stress and energy-metabolism kit measurements, fresh-water and acetylcholine post-exposure trajectories, surrogate-protein molecular docking.
What it can support: Under this formulation and fasting protocol, imidacloprid-treated groups showed lower tracked movement across 24 to 72 hours, and higher nominal treatments had lower heartbeat and maxilliped-movement rates at 96 hours. The small whole-animal assay series reported no group differences in its selected oxidative-stress or energy-metabolism measures.
What it cannot support: Independent exposure tanks, random allocation, formulation-only controls and measured water concentrations were not reported. The text conflicts between 12 endpoint animals and 20 exposed animals per group, and treatment is confounded with the apparent single tank while animal measurements are analysed as replicates. Starvation changed heartbeat and maxilliped movement, acetylcholine itself changed the measured endpoints, and the rescue comparison also appears to use one tank per group. Docking used a snail acetylcholine-binding protein rather than a shrimp receptor and cannot prove the in vivo mechanism. The study does not validate acetylcholine as an antidote, identify imidacloprid from behaviour, establish recovery, chronic safety, a plant or flea-product rule, an aquarium dose or a universal threshold.
Open the source or open this record in the full research map.
Controlled experiment
Direct Neocaridina evidence
Marques, 2018. Integrated MSc dissertation in Veterinary Medicine, University of Lisbon.
Source taxon as published: Commercial adult shrimp labelled Neocaridina davidi var red; no morphological or molecular identification method was reported
Study shape: The first four-week trial placed a new 15-shrimp group in each of four aquaria each week while one lamp colour remained assigned to each aquarium. The second 20-day trial kept four 15-shrimp groups in their aquaria while rotating the four lamps every five days. An observer counted shrimp inside the lit Petri dish, inside the unlit Petri dish and elsewhere every five minutes during five one-hour periods per day. Lamp spectra were reported as relative spectral distributions, and the lit-dish count was analysed with a generalized linear mixed model followed by Tukey comparisons.
Experimental unit: In the first trial, aquarium and light colour were completely confounded even though four successive shrimp groups entered each tank. In the second, aquarium-period was the assigned unit, giving four five-day tank-periods per colour while the same four groups were counted repeatedly. The thesis reports 5,200 count occasions per trial but does not state the model formula, response family, random effects, repeated-measures correlation, lamp order or carryover treatment.
Environment: Four 15-litre aquaria at a reported 23 C, pH 7 and 60 mg/L GH, each holding 15 adults and two Petri dishes of black stones, with only the left dish illuminated by a white, blue, red or green Marina LED
Endpoints: number inside the lit Petri dish, number inside the unlit Petri dish, number elsewhere in the aquarium, qualitative movement, observed mortality, births and molts.
What it can support: Under this two-dish apparatus, the mean number counted inside the lit dish differed by lamp colour in both trials. Reported lit-dish means were 3.70 red, 1.76 green, 0.93 white and 0.03 blue in the first trial, and 4.03 red, 1.74 green, 1.32 white and 0.01 blue in the rotating-lamp trial. The result supports a short-term colour-associated location-count signal that merits a better controlled replication.
What it cannot support: The thesis does not establish a preferred aquarium spectrum or a welfare ranking. It compared one coloured lit area with one dark area rather than offering simultaneous colour choices, kept the lit area on the left, did not measure or equalize irradiance or illuminance, reported only normalized spectral shapes and did not report observer blinding. Red shrimp can also differ in detectability under different coloured lamps. The stated 20:00 to 08:00 light period does not overlap the stated 09:00 to 19:00 observations, leaving the exposure timing internally unresolved. The first-trial methods state 240 adults while the abstract states n = 120. Phase one cannot separate lamp colour from aquarium; phase two does not report lamp sequence, washout or carryover control; and the statistical formula and random effects are absent despite thousands of correlated repeat counts. Sex, individual identity, lamp output drift and births entering counts were not resolved. No stress biomarker, growth, survival comparison, reproductive rate or chronic colony outcome was measured. Absence of observed deaths and incidental births or molts cannot show comfort, health benefit or reproductive superiority. Do not recommend red light, warn against blue light, specify a spectrum or photoperiod, infer colour vision, or use lamp attraction as a capture method from this study.
Open the source or open this record in the full research map.
Controlled experiment
Direct Neocaridina evidence
Tropea, Lavarías and López Greco, 2018. Zoology 130: 57-66.
Source taxon as published: Neocaridina davidi
Study shape: Male or female presence and access to physical, visual or short-range cues were manipulated while ovarian development was followed.
Experimental unit: Focal juvenile female within an assigned social or cue-access treatment
Environment: Laboratory social and cue-access treatments involving juvenile focal females
Endpoints: ovarian growth, time course of maturation, effect of conspecific sex and contact.
What it can support: Male presence accelerated ovarian growth and physical contact was required for the reported effect, while female presence delayed ovarian growth.
What it cannot support: It does not establish a home colony sex ratio, prove a distant pheromone effect or let rapid swimming diagnose mating readiness.
Open the source or open this record in the full research map.