In order to explore the potential compensatory growth of S.constricta,the digestion and antioxidant capacity changes of S.constricta during starvation and refeeding were studied in our study.The materials used in our study are 5 specifications of S.constricta collected from Ningde,Fujian Province.The average shell length of the materials are 0.7 cm,1.4 cm,2.0 cm,4.0 cm and 6.0 cm which are marked as N1,N2,N3,N4 and N5 respectively.In the conditions of seawater temperature 8-11 ℃,salinity 20-22 and pH 7.4-7.9,the effects of sixday starvation and subsequent fiveday microalgae refeeding on the digestion and antioxidant capacity of 5 groups of S.constricta were investigated.The activity of the digestive enzymes amylase and cellulase,malondialdehyde(MDA) content and total antioxidant capacity(T-AOC) were measured as indicators using detection kits(Nanjing Jiancheng Bioengineering Institute,China) during starvation and subsequent refeeding.The amylase activity was determined by means of iodinestarch method and the method of carboxymethyl cellulase(CMC) saccharification was used for determining the activity of cellulase.Using thibabituric acid(TBA) method to determine the MDA content and Fe³⁺ deoxidization colorimetry method was used for the determination of T-AOC.The determination of total protein used the Coomassie brilliant blue.Based on the data and results,the potential compensatory growth of S.constricta was preliminarily explored in our study.The results are as follows:the amylase activity and cellulase activity of S.constricta tended to decrease as the individual size grew,but the opposite is true to the TAOC.In the stage of starvation:the amylase activity and cellulase activity of N1 experienced a rapid and sharp decline while N2,N3 and N4 increased to different degrees before decreased,there were no significant differences in the amylase activity and cellulase activity of N5; the MDA content decreased significantly(P<0.05) except N3,the MDA content reduced to the lowest level after the previous twoday or threeday starvation and after that the MDA content began to rise.Refeeding led to a significant(P<0.05) increase in the activities of amylase and cellulase which were higher than the level before starvation in all groups separately from the 1st day to the 4th day.In the initial 3 days of refeeding,the MDA content of N1,N4 and N5 reduced significantly which was less than the content level before starvation(P<0.05).However,there were no significant differences in the total antioxidant capacity in S.constricta of the 5 specifications during the entire experiment(P>0.05).The results of our study indicated that previous sixday starvation and subsequent fiveday refeeding had no significant effect on the antioxidant capacity of S.constricta but could improve their digestion. A reasonable model of starvation and refeeding of S.constricta is suggested to be set to promote the compensatory growth of S.constricta.