Abstract: Age is one of the important parameters of fishery population dynamic model and fishery stock assessment. Unlike the finfish species whose aging can be examined by the calcified structures, such as otolith, spine and vertebrae, the calcified structure, such as carapace, of crustaceans disappear periodically for its complex moulting process, so crustacean’s aging is an unsolved problem for many years. Size frequency (SF) method are used to estimate crustacean’s age in the past years, however, many potential uncertainties existed in the results derived from SF. The lipofuscin level increases with the increase of animals’ age, so, if there is no correlation between morphological measurements and age, lipofuscin has been considered as a biomarker of the crustacean’s aging in the recent years. In order to get profound insight into this approach and its application to the crustaceans, this review summarized the progress of determining the age of crustaceans, introduced the composition and features of lipofuscin, and explored the relationship between lipofuscin level and the body length or age. Then this review described the quantification techniques of lipofuscin using histological and solvent extraction techniques. Three common calibration methods were analyzed in detail. Finally, this review put forward opinions and the direction of development in aging crustacean based on the lipofuscin analysis in the future.

Key words: water quality, water environment, model simulation., ecological engineering, river