Increasing requests for the seaweed suggests both the macroalgae is readily accepted by Aplysia held at inland facilities and meets investigators' requirements for a readily available food source. Feedback from some investigators expressed concern for the nutritional quality of the numerous types of food products used to feed Aplysia and their potential effects upon long-term experiments. This prompted us to evaluate several of the most commonly used food items with respect to consumption, growth, and survival. Results from the study are an initial attempt at developing a laboratory protocol for feeding trials with juvenile Aplysia and should be considered preliminary. We were initially interested in changes in the serotonin and dopamine systems in A. californica as a function of age.
All animals show changes with age, and A. californica are no different.
Experimenters, generally using size as the criterion, have shown age-related changes in reflexes, in learning and in circadian rhythms. One way of assessing age has been to look at shell size, which is a useful parameter, but even here weight plays a role. It is thus extremely helpful to have animals of a known age.