The American horseshoe crab Limulus polyphemus is vitally important for its role in the biomedical industry. Amoebocytes in the hemolymph, or blood, of horseshoe crabs isolate foreign bacteria by detecting and quickly clotting around endotoxins. Because of their remarkable clotting abilities, these amoebocytes are extracted from the blood to create Limulus Amoebocyte Lysate (LAL), which is used to test for the presence of toxins in medical devices and injectables.
Understanding the factors that influence amoebocyte density, metabolic stress, and mortality in horseshoe crabs has important management implications. Selective harvesting of horseshoe crabs with the highest amoebocyte levels may allow biomedical bleeding facilities to generate similar levels of LAL while using fewer crabs. This would be more efficient and cost effective for those facilities while reducing the number of horseshoe crabs that die due to harvesting. The main goal of the proposal is to determine factors (e.g. age, holding pond water temperature) that influence blood chemistry (e.g., amoebocyte density), metabolic stress, and mortality in horseshoe crabs harvested for the biomedical industry.