1. Introduction
The development of artificial sustainable diets and the control of reproduction were identified as the main bottlenecks of cephalopods’ culture by Villanueva et al. [
1]. Efforts have been made to progress in the development of pellets for some important species, such as the common octopus (
Octopus vulgaris). The first attempt in the development of formulated feeds for the common octopus tested moist diets made by mixing a fish or crustacean paste with binders [
2,
3,
4,
5]. Then, dry ingredients (freeze-dried or conventional meals) were included in semi-moist [
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13] or pelleted diets [
14,
15,
16].
O. vulgaris preferably chose low-temperature processed feeds [
11,
12] and either rejected or showed low performance when fed other high-temperature processed ones [
14,
15,
16]. Recently, Rodríguez–González et al. [
17] observed that applying a high drying temperature (100 °C) promoted changes in the polar lipid pool, while applying freeze-drying or a low dehydration temperature (<60 °C) did not, to some extent, when compared with frozen raw materials.
In general terms,
O. vulgaris requires an artificial diet with a high protein percentage and amino acid content to sustain growth, while lipids are also essential but should be included at a lower quantity [
18]. Still, O’Dor et al. [
19] suggested that lipids could be a limiting factor even in natural diets. Despite the multitude of studies regarding ongrowing (supplying natural or formulated diets with different lipid content [
3,
10,
20,
21]) and starvation [
22,
23]; the amount and profile of the lipid fraction considered in the feed formulation for cephalopods still considers the body composition of both wild cephalopods and prey [
18].
The low lipid content of cephalopods in general and that of
O. vulgaris muscle in particular; which is characterized by a high polar lipid fraction compared to the neutral one [
24,
25], is remarkable. The species hatchlings [
26,
27,
28,
29,
30,
31] and adults [
25,
32,
33,
34] display similar lipid class profiles, which are characterized by a polar lipid fraction rich in phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylserine (PS), phosphatidylinositol (PI), and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), while cholesterol (CHO) is the main class found in neutral lipids. According to Almansa et al. [
35] and Navarro and Villanueva [
26,
36], phospholipids, CHO, and long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) play a pivotal role in cephalopod development at early stages. In fact, LC-PUFAs, such as docosahexaenoic (DHA), eicosapentaenoic (EPA), and arachidonic (ARA) acids have been considered as essential fatty acids (EFA; [
30,
31,
37]) for
O. vulgaris hatchlings. The species incorporates these fatty acids (FA) by esterifying them into specific phospholipid substrates [
31] which display characteristic FA, or EFA, profiles in major phospholipids [
29]. Recent studies reported an enzymatic characterization of the biosynthetic pathways of LC-PUFA and EFA for the species [
38,
39]. The similarity between the major lipid classes of different cephalopod species and the recent knowledge regarding lipids physiology and requirements points to the possibility that the lipid class’s profile of feeds might be a limiting factor for growth performance of
O. vulgaris when fed artificial diets.
Natural diets, rich in neutral lipids, are commonly associated with restrictions in nutrient absorption, due to a saturation of the digestive system, as a consequence of the absence of emulsifiers or low enzyme activity in the digestive tract of cephalopods [
19,
20,
40]. Moreover, a reduction in lipids’ apparent digestibility coefficients related to increasing fish oil in formulated diets composition was observed by Morillo–Velarde et al. [
10]. In fact, some authors observed differences between the FA profile of incorporated lipids in
O. vulgaris hatchlings, namely a preferential esterification of PUFA and EFA into polar lipids while monounsaturated FA were usually esterified into neutral lipids [
29,
31,
41], depending on availability. A higher digestibility of prepared diets, observed when including a higher polar lipid fraction, has been reported [
10,
42,
43]. This sustains the hypothesis that a diet with a lower total lipid but with a higher polar lipid fraction might prevent the lipid digestion issues reported to occur in cephalopods.
There are multiple reports regarding the inclusion of soybean lecithin or marine phospholipids as dietary supplementation in feeds for larvae and juvenile fish to cover the limited capacity for phospholipid synthesis [
44], promoting positive effects in growth, survival, digestive functions, and skeletal development [
45,
46,
47,
48,
49]. In contrast, there is only one manuscript [
50] regarding the inclusion of phospholipids in diets for octopus, namely for paralarvae. Guinot et al. [
50] used either soybean lecithin or marine phospholipids as enrichment for
Artemia sp. metanauplii as an attempt to obtain a lipid profile that would cover octopus paralarvae requirements. To the best of our knowledge, until present, there is not a single study on the use of marine phospholipid dietary supplementation of feeds for
O. vulgaris or for any cephalopod.
Phospholipids used as supplement for artificial diets are commonly extracted from vegetable (soybean), non-marine (egg yolk, milk or brain) or marine animal sources [
51,
52]. Contrary to other sources, marine phospholipids (usually obtained from the roe of various fish species and krill oil, i.e., 38%–75% and 40%, respectively; [
51]) are highly rich in n-3 LC-PUFA, namely EPA and DHA [
53]. In both fish and krill oil, PC is the main class found in extractions, followed by PE, PI, and Sphingomyelin (SM) [
52]. Since marine lecithin is rich in these EFA and lipid classes, its inclusion as a supplement could be a suitable way to enhance the feed performance of prepared diets given to octopus. In this sense, the present study tested the suitability of marine lecithin (at 20 g/kg) as a dietary supplement for
O. vulgaris formulated feeds regarding changes in feed intake, growth, nutrients digestibility, and animals’ composition (macronutrients and lipid classes’ profile).
3. Discussion
In the present study, the inclusion of 20 g/kg of marine lecithin in the formulation (diet CALPRO-LM) increased the content of total lipids while maintaining the lipid classes’ profile of the control diet CALPRO (non-supplemented diet), translating in a higher available amount of polar lipids in the supplemented feed (CALPRO-LM; data not shown). Both diets showed a high content of FFA in their lipid class profiles (
Table 2). We believe that this excess of oxidation was related to the state of raw materials used in the preparation of feeds, as all raw materials were purchased from the suppliers up to one month before being used. All raw materials were frozen at −80 °C, freeze-dried, ground to powder, stored in vacuum-pack, and kept at 4 °C to be used in the different formulations. The cold chain was never broken from the time these entered the facilities and until the formulations were prepared. Another remarkable issue was the higher disintegration rates in water (WSI) observed in the CALPRO-LM feed, pointing to a negative effect of lecithin supplementation on the stability of CALPRO formulation. A decrease in stability after being submerged for 24 h in seawater was also observed when soybean lecithin was included in a semi-moist feed tested previously in common octopus [
54]. In contrast, the inclusion of fish oil in the same type of feed provided a higher stability [
10].
Survival rates were high in both treatments. Higher survival rates (98–100%) were achieved in some marine fish species when fed marine phospholipid supplemented diets [
47,
48,
49]. In fact, the CALPRO diet did not generate any mortality in the present or in a previous study in which a formulated feed, with a similar basal composition to CALPRO, was supplied to octopus [
6]. The only registered mortality was observed in a CALPRO-LM experimental tank at day 46 and had no relation whatsoever to the feeding conditions. A previous experiment performed with fish oil-supplemented diets also showed 100% survival [
10], while the inclusion of soybean lecithin generated a 12.5% mortality rate [
54].
A similar food intake (SFR of 2.03–2.76%BW/day) was observed between treatments during both the first and second months of the experiment (
Table 3). The CALPRO diet promoted higher growth rates than CALPRO-LM during the first month (SGR of 1.74 ± 0.22 and 0.94 ± 0.34%BW/day, respectively). In contrast, during the second month, SGR was similar between both diets (SGR of 0.88 ± 0.16 and 0.81 ± 0.25%BW/day for CALPRO and CALPRO-LM, respectively;
p > 0.05) but values were lower than in the first month. This decrease in SGR after a given time was previously reported by other authors who were testing prepared diets in the species [
6,
7,
13,
54,
55]. If this issue is exclusively related to the formulation itself or if it has some relation to the species behavior remains to be determined, as the feeding rates were maintained. A good formulation should promote a progressive increase in food-intake to sustain, or even increase, growth rates in growing octopus.
Considering the whole experimental period (days 0–56), the best growth and feed efficiency were obtained in animals fed the diet without marine phospholipids supplementation (CALPRO). Bearing in mind the present and the similar results reported by Rodríguez–González et al. [
54], it seems that the inclusion of 20g/kg of phospholipids in formulated feeds, from animal marine (marine lecithin) or vegetable (soybean lecithin) sources, do not have a beneficial effect on octopus growth (AGR and SGR), ingestion (AFR and SFR), feed efficiency (FE) or food conversion (FCR). Other studies also showed a negative effect or no benefit related to the inclusion of lipids in formulated feeds [
7,
10,
54] or when octopus were fed natural diets with a high fat content [
20,
56,
57].
In the present study, octopus showed absolute growth rates between 7.88 g/day and 13.69 g/day being fed diets with 71.9–101.6 g/kg crude lipid. The highest growth rates in this species were reported when individuals were fed crustaceans, such as the green crab (
Carcinus mediterraneus; 16.23–18.8 g/day, 23.9–24.9 g/kg lipids [
2,
57] or blue and white crabs (
Portunus pelagicus and
Plagusia depressa; 14.1–17.1 g/day; 70–91 g/kg lipids; [
56]. In general, crustaceans are rich in polar lipids [
17,
25]. In this sense, a low dietary content of this type of lipid in a prepared diet might have some constraining effect on octopus growth performance. Despite crude lipid and total polar lipids increased in absolute quantity with the addition of marine lecithin (approaching the CALPRO-LM composition to that of crustaceans), the rearing performance was not enhanced. The differences in growth observed between crustaceans and formulated feeds with similar dietary lipid content and lipid classes profile demonstrate that the amount of lipids, and specifically polar lipids, cannot be considered as the sole factor affecting octopus growth. In this study, the low-lipid diet CALPRO promoted AGR results of ≈14 g/day, similar to those obtained with the use of a crustacean-based diet [
56].
Diets tested in the present study had a lower efficiency (FE between 39% and 53%) when compared to others reported previously (61–73%; [
6,
7]). The present results show a lower FE in the supplemented treatment during the first month. In contrast, Morillo–Velarde et al. [
10] did not report any effect on FE (in individual reared octopus during the same experimental period) when supplying lipid supplemented feeds with fish oil. In the present study, a decrease of FE was only observed during the second ongrowing month, i.e., in the long term, similar to what was reported when feeding a supplemented soybean lecithin diet [
54]. However, in both cases (the present and the latter), this FE reduction was not so acute when compared to those reported to occur when octopus were fed with fish oil supplemented feeds [
10]. Altogether, these results might suggest that
O. vulgaris has a limited tolerance to high-lipid feeds during prolonged periods, as the two referred studies (Morillo–Velarde et al. [
10] and Rodríguez–González et al. [
54]) and the present showed this FE reduction and share the commonality of feeding octopus on high-lipid diets. The higher metabolic effectiveness of smaller animals, compared with bigger ones, should also explain the decrease in FE during the second month [
6,
58]. Although the individuals used in the experiment were males (known to be less affected by reproduction processes), maturation could also have affected FE. For this reason the maturation stage of individuals should have been evaluated before and after the trial.
Marine lecithin supplementation did not improve protein or lipid retention. Instead, these were reduced when compared with individuals fed the CALPRO diet (
Table 3). The protein retention (PPV) of animals fed the supplemented diet was low (≈15%), while octopus fed CALPRO presented similar PPV to those reported to be fed on crab (25%; [
57]) or other formulated feeds containing squid (26–27%; [
6]). Moreover, PPV was reported to be not significantly affected with other lipid supplements included in common octopus feeds [
10,
54]. LPV was also lower in octopus fed the CALPRO-LM diet (≈9%) when compared with CALPRO, other formulated feeds [
6,
7,
12] or natural diets [
2]. In this respect, fish oil [
10] and soybean lecithin [
54] supplemented diets also promoted a significant reduction in LPV when increasing crude lipid content in diets.
Feeds digestibility was lower (0.75–0.79) than previously reported in diets prepared with freeze-dried ingredients and higher dietary crude lipid contents [
8,
12]. This difference could be mostly related to the null digestibility of complex polysaccharides by
O. vulgaris [
9]. Higher feed digestibility was reported to occur when starch was not included as raw material (0.93; [
8]) compared with feeds which included 30 g/kg of starch (0.86; [
12]). Undoubtedly, the inclusion of starch in the prepared diets (80–100 g/kg) penalized the total digestibility in the present study.
Protein ADC was not affected by the inclusion of marine lecithin suggesting that 20 g/kg of this supplementation did not interfere in protein digestibility. This observation is in accordance with previous studies, in which the lipid content of diets did not interfere with protein digestibility when either natural [
20,
21] or fish oil supplemented feeds were supplied to octopus [
10]. In contrast, protein ADC diminished significantly when soybean lecithin was added, at a same level of inclusion, in feeds for octopus [
54]. In addition, the high protein ADCs obtained in the present study (above 0.94) agree with preceding coefficients (over 0.9) already reported in
O. vulgaris [
9,
10,
40], verifying a high protein digestion effectiveness in this species [
59,
60,
61,
62].
A high lipid ADC (above 0.90) was also observed in both polar (0.76–0.98) and neutral (0.71–1.00) lipid classes, as reported in previous studies [
10,
12,
40,
54]. Marine lecithin supplementation did not interfere with lipid ADC, while in a previous study [
54], the inclusion of soybean lecithin promoted a slight decrease in lipid digestibility. These results contrast with those reporting a limited capacity of cephalopods to metabolize lipids [
26,
63,
64]. High lipase activity has been observed mainly at the digestive gland of cephalopods and, to a lesser degree, in salivary glands [
65,
66]. This is characterized as a continuous secretion in the digestive gland of opportunistic cephalopod species, such as
Euprymna tasmanica, while secretion is stimulated by feeding in the remaining [
67]. The lipases, produced and accumulated at the digestive gland, are used at once in opportunistic species. When the accrued volume of lipases is finished, its production is slowed down, generating a decrease in lipid digestion efficiency. Although lipases activity was not determined, considering the high lipid ADC, it can be speculated that the low-lipid diets (71.9–101.6 g/kg crude lipid) tested in this study promoted a continuous and effective lipid digestion.
Other marine organisms, i.e., fish species, experienced an enhancement in lipid digestion and nutrient assimilation, due to the emulsifying effect of dietary phospholipids [
44]. Contrariwise, the present results (of including 20g/kg of marine lecithin) or previous results of including soybean lecithin [
54] in an
O. vulgaris feed have shown no benefits. In the present study, apart from the high lipid digestibility, no other influence was exerted by the inclusion of marine lecithin. A previous study, in which fish oil [
10] was included as the lipid source apart from the naturally prepared ingredients, reported an acute decrease of lipid ADC related with the content of total lipids (from 81.25% to 12.27% in non-supplemented and 200 g/kg supplemented diets, respectively). Both tested diets in the present study presented a lower total lipid content (71.9–101.6 g/kg dry weight) when compared with the non-supplemented fish oil diet (137.7 g/kg dry weight) tested by Morillo–Velarde et al. [
54]. In all these diets, lipids proceeded from natural sources (freeze-dried ingredients), egg yolk (half in tested diets of the present study), and lipid supplements (either marine lecithin or fish oil). The CALPRO and CALPRO-LM feeds presented a higher lipid ADC than the non-supplemented diet tested previously [
10], suggesting the relevance of a low amount of total lipids in diets formulated for
O. vulgaris. Still, the polar and neutral lipid fractions digestibility (TPL and TNL ADCs, respectively) displayed high percentual values (above 0.90) and were not influenced by lecithin. Contrariwise, Morillo–Velarde et al. [
10] observed a decrease in TNL ADC of high-lipid diets supplemented with fish oil. Altogether, it suggests a better digestibility towards polar lipids when compared to neutral. On the other hand, Rodríguez–González et al. [
54] observed a significant enhancement in TPL and TNL ADCs when including 20 g/kg of soybean lecithin as supplement, which further suggest the relevance of the lipid class and/or fatty acids profiles on lipids digestibility. In general, good condition (DGI) values were determined for both groups, similar to those reported to occur when feeding octopus with crab and around 4.97% [
2] or formulated feeds (6%; [
6,
7]). In addition, the present results were similar to those reported by Morillo–Velarde et al. [
10] and Rodríguez–González et al. [
54], who did not observe any effect on animals’ condition related to the inclusion of lipid supplements.
The digestive gland is considered a lipid storage organ [
22,
23,
24]. Accordingly, we verified a lipid content ranging between 321.3 g/kg and 364.4 g/kg in this organ, while a much lower quantity of 15.1–17.9 g/kg was found in the carcass. Contrary to previous studies [
3,
10] but similar to the results reported by Rodríguez–González et al. [
54], the group fed with the higher lipid diet (CALPRO-LM;
Table 5) did not show a higher accumulation of lipids in the digestive gland. Moreover, the inclusion of marine lecithin did not generate variations in the overall proximate composition of the digestive gland but only in the carcass (
Table 5). A higher lipid content was verified in the whole animal composition of experimental octopus compared to those sampled at the beginning of the experiment. Accordingly, Morillo–Velarde et al. [
10] and Rodríguez–González et al. [
54] also reported differences in the lipid content between experimental and wild animals. Therefore, a diet’s effect on animals’ proximate composition was verified, which was probably caused by the high-lipid content.
Regarding the lipid profile of tissues, the LC profile of tissues in the present study (PC, PS+PI, PE, FFA, and TAG) was similar to that previously reported in this species [
3,
22,
24,
25]. This profile was mostly conserved in tissues between treatments: It was similar in the carcass, but FFA were reduced and SE increased in the digestive gland of octopus fed the CALPRO-LM diet (
Table 6). This suggests that the inclusion of dietary marine lecithin (at 20 g/kg) did not disturb either the metabolism or the lipid storage and transport as reported by Morillo–Velarde et al. [
10] to occur when octopus were fed with a high-lipid diet. Morillo–Velarde et al. [
22] and García–Garrido et al. [
23] reported a preferential use of TAG during fasting while the polar lipids content was not modified in the digestive gland. The higher FFA percentage observed in the digestive gland of octopus fed CALPRO compared with those fed CALPRO-LM could suggest a higher TAG catabolism or FFA storage in this organ with a poorer crude lipid content feeds. In any case, the present results indicate that marine lecithin supplementation at 20 g/kg does not promote an increased rearing performance.