Use of different commercial Artemia sp. Enrichements in Octopus Vulgaris, paralarval rearing at initial planctonic phase: effects on growth, survival and fatty acid composition of the paralarvae

[EN] Octopus "paralarvae", are planktonic, swim actively and have high metabolic rates, requiring large quantities of live prey of adequate motility and nutritional quality ( Iglesias et al., 2000; Navarro and Villanueva, 2000, 2003). During the planktonic phase, they undergo strong morphological changes, after which the octopuses start settling to the bottom. The potential of Octopus vulgaris as candiadate for diversification of marine aquacultures are mainly due to its high food conversion rate and fast growth.( Iglesias et al 2006). Despite the research effort taken until now, paralarval rearing of O. vulgaris still suffers high mortalities which limited the industrial culture of this species. The main problems in the paralarval rearing stages are the high mortality rates and poor growth. These are attributed to the lack of standardized culture techniques and nutritional deficiencies in the diet of paralarvae, especially in n-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids (n-3 HUFA). The objective if this experience was to test different commercial live prey enrichment to improve nutritional quality of the artemia.

GDH activity and ammonium excretion in the marine mysid, "Leptomysis lingvura": effects of age and starvation

[EN] Ammonium (NH4+) release by bacterial remineralization and heterotrophic grazers determines the regenerated fraction of phytoplankton productivity, so the measurement of NH4+ excretion in marine organisms is necessary to characterize both the magnitude and the efficiency of the nitrogen cycle. Glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) is largely responsible for NH4+ formation in crustaceans and consequently should be useful in estimating NH4+ excretion by marine zooplankton.
Here, we address body size and starvation as sources of variability on the GDH to NH4+ excretion ratio (GDH/RNH4+). We found a strong correlation between the RNH4+ and the GDH activity (r2 = 0.87, n = 41) during growth. Since GDH activity maintained a linear relation (b = 0.93) and RNH4+ scaled exponentially (b =0.55) in well fed mysids, the GDH/RNH4+ ratio increased with size. However, the magnitude of its variation increased even more when adult mysids were starved. In this case, the GDH/RNH4+ ratio ranged from 11.23 to 102.41.

GDH activity and ammonium excretion in the marine mysid "Leptomysis lingvura": effects of age and starvation

Máster Universitario en Oceanografía