The recovery growth experiment in the shrimp Macrobrachium nipponense following different periods of starvation.The experiment lasted for 18days for each test group. GroupC, S2, S4 and S8 were deprived food for 0 (control), 2, 4 and 8 days, respectively. Then each group was refed at ad libitum ration level for its rest experimental time. Upon realimentation after periods of starvation, specific growth rate, feeding rate and food conversion efficiency in terms of wet weight in each previously starved group were higher than those in group C. The change of pepsin, tryptase and lipase activity in Macrobrachium nipponense was sameness during starvation and after recovery growth, decrease significantly and then increases, but the trent of lipase was more evidently. While the activity of amylase increases a little and then decrease significantly. The results indicated that there was completely-orpartially-compensatory effect in the recovery growth in the Macrobrachium nipponense following starvation, and that the compensatory effect mainly resulted from significant increase of the feeding level and food conversion efficiency in there covery growth. So,the compensatory growth in the shrimp Macrobrachium nipponense is the result of the two physiological factors working together. Key words: Macrobrachium nipponense; starvation; compensatory growth; digestive enzyme