Special Issue "Sustainable Aquaculture: Nutrition Studies in Early Developing Finfish, Ornamentals and Experimental Model Fish"
A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Aquatic Animals".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2021.
Special Issue Editors
Interests: syngnathidae; fish; rearing; aquaculture; biology; ecology; stable isotopes; food web
Interests: alternative protein sources; fish reproduction; fish physiology; insect meal; fish nutrition
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Knowledge of feeding/nutritional requirements are pivotal keys in development and growth of cultured fishes, which largely rely on the capture, digestion and assimilation of adequate feed. Larviculture of fishes has largely improved in recent years but there is still the need of rearing optimization by developing new feeding procedures and identifying new and sustainable feed ingredients i. Even though our understanding on dietary and nutritional requirements of fish early developmental stages have considerably progressed (particularly in finfish species), extra information is necessary for rearing enhancement, especially for a better knowledge of the nutritional quantitative requirements in early developing fishes as well as to make aquaculture more sustainable.
The approach for this Special Issue is particularly focused on commonly reared finfish species, ornamentals and species used as biological models. The topics of interest include but are not limited to feeding improvement, new feeding strategies, novel and sustainable ingredients and dietary sources for aquafeed production, microdiet technology, broodstock nutrition for larval condition improvement, prebiotics and probiotics, traceability, stress response, and welfare.
Due to the growing demand for ornamental and experimental model species, there is a need to provide novel information that allow the increase in production efficiencies and the environmental sustainability of targeted species.
Dr. Miquel Planas Oliver
Prof. Dr. Ike Olivotto
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
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Keywords
- Fish
- larvae
- nutrition
- feeding
- diets
- rearing
- traceability
- finfish
- model fish
- ornamentals
- sustainable aquafeed ingredients
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Sonia Valladares 1, * and Miquel Planas 2
1 Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas (CSIC), Eduardo Cabello 6, 36208 Vigo, Spain; [email protected]
2 Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas (CSIC), Eduardo Cabello 6, 36208 Vigo, Spain; [email protected]
* Correspondence: [email protected]
Abstract: Feeding issues are among the most critical factors in the initial survival of juvenile seahorses but there is a scarce knowledge in this subject. Our research is focused on the use of stable isotopes to assess the assimilation of food in early juvenile seahorses of Hippocampus guttulatus reared under two feeding conditions: Artemia or copepods. The results from our study suggest that copepods are more efficiently assimilated than Artemia since higher growth and survival were related to copepods feeding. Also, the consumption and assimilation of preys by juvenile seahorses could be traced using stable carbon isotopes as the stable carbon isotope values in seahorses approached the values of the corresponding diet. To our knowledge, it is the first study to assess nutrient assimilation in a seahorse species using stable isotopes. We believe the information presented may be relevant for seahorse nutrition studies and improves our understanding of initial mortalities of juvenile seahorses.
Keywords: seahorses; stable isotopes; food assimilation
2. Successful use of geochemical tools to trace the geographic origin of long-snouted seahorse Hippocampus guttulatus raised in captivity
Ana Elisa Cabral1, Fernando Ricardo1, Carla Patinha2, Eduardo Ferreira da Silva2, Miguel Correia3, Jorge Palma3, Miquel Planas4 and Ricardo Calado1,*
1 ECOMARE, CESAM- Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies, Department of Biology, University of Aveiro, Santiago University Campus, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
2 GEOBIOTEC & Department of Geosciences, University of Aveiro, Santiago University Campus,, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal; [email protected]; [email protected]
3 CCMAR, Centro de Ciências do Mar, Universidade do Algarve, Campus de Gambelas, 8005-139 Faro, Portugal; e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
4 Department of Ecology and Marine Resources, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas (IIM-CSIC), Vigo, Spain; [email protected]
* Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +351 234370779
Abstract:
The global market of dried seahorses mainly supplies Traditional Chinese Medicine and still relies on blurry trade chains that often cover less sustainable practices targeting these pricey and endangered fish. As such, reliable tools that allow the enforcement of traceability, namely to confirm the geographic origin of traded seahorses, are urgently needed. The present study evaluated the use of elements fingerprints (EF) in the bony structures of long-snouted seahorses Hippocampus guttulatus raised in captivity in two different locations (southern Portugal and Northern Spain) to discriminate their geographic origin. The EF of different body parts of H. guttulatus were also evaluated as potential proxies for the whole body, in order to allow the analysis of damaged specimens and avoid using whole specimens for analysis. The contrasting EF of H. guttulatus raised in the two locations allowed their reliable discrimination. Although no single body part exactly mimicked the EF of the whole body, seahorse trunks, as well as damaged specimens, could still be correctly allocated to their geographic origin. This promising approach to discriminate the geographic origin for seahorses raised in captivity should now be validated for wild conspecifics originating from different locations, as well as for other species within genus Hippocampus.
Keywords: bony plates, elements fingerprints, ICP-MS, traceability