Methods to study organogenesis in decapod crustacean larvae II: analysing cells and tissues

Table 1 Summary of speed (from slow* to fast****) and costs (from rather cheap € to rather expensive €€€€) of the methods presented in this paper

	Speed	Costs of reagents	Costs of lab instruments	Costs of imaging equipment
Macrophotography	****	€	€	€
Autofluorescence microscopy	****	€	€	€€/€€€
SEM	**	€€	€€	€€€€
Micro CT	***	€	€€	€€€€
Paraplast histology	**	€€	€€€	€/€€€
Semithin histology	**	€€€	€€€	€/€€€
TEM	*	€€€	€€€€	€€€€
Immunohistochemistry	**	€€€€	€	€€/€€€€
Proliferation markers	**	€€€€	€	€€/€€€€
Nuclear dyes	****	€€	€	€€/€€€€

Some methods are much more time consuming than others: **** hours, *** one day, ** several days, * several weeks. The costs of reagents summarises necessary chemicals: € < 10, €€ < 100, €€€ < 500, €€€€ < 1,000. The costs of lab instrumentation summarises standard equipment such as orbital shakers, ovens and microtomes: € < 500, €€ < 5,000, €€€ < 10,000, €€€€ < 20,000. For the imaging equipment, some analysis is possible with rather simple microscopes, but more sophisticated instruments (such as a confocal laser scanning microscope) can be rather expensive: € < 2,000, €€ < 20,000, €€€ < 100,000, €€€€ over 250,000.