Aquaculture America 2020

February 9 - 12, 2020

Honolulu, Hawaii

INSIGHTS INTO USE OF NON-ABLATED SHRIMP Litopenaeus vannamei IN COMMERCIAL SCALE HATCHERIES

Simão Zacarias*, Stefano Carboni, Andrew Davie and David C. Little
 
 Institute of Aquacult ure - University of Stirling, FK94LA,  Stirling-Scotland, UK
/simaozacarias@yahoo.co.uk
 

The Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei ), is currently the most cultured marine shrimp worldwide with 75% of global shrimp production in 2016 and it represent an important marine food source for the consumers. Induction of rapid egg production i n captive  of this shrimp is usually induced by uni lateral eyestalk ablation which involves the removal or constriction of one eyestalk through cutting, cauterizing or tying to reduce the level of hormone that inhibit reproduction of shrimp in captivity . However, due to physiological imbalance and stress caused by this practice, it has attracted attention as an animal welfare issue .  As a result the development of alternatives to  the use of  unilateral eyestalk ablation in hatcheries has become a priority for producers, retailers and seafood certifiers.

The potential of using shrimp without  unilateral eyestalk ablation (non-ablated) in modern egg production practices has been evaluated and the quality of their offspring was assessed from early development stage to edible size under commercial scale. Our current results have demonstrat ed that  non-ablated shrimp  female can have similar level of productivity (eggs and nauplii per tank/day) as ablated animals if the broodstock are supplied high quality supplementary moist feed during pre-maturation. Non-ablated animals can produce more eggs and nauplii (>20% and >16%) than  conventionally ablated female. T he  mortality of non-ablated female  over a typical breeding period is almost half the level of ablated female. The offspring produced by non-ablated females have similar growth and  final  survival to those  from  ablated  female  from early development stage to edible size . However, salinity stress tests indicated that offspring from non-ablated female have better resilience (5 to 10% more survival) . Our findings suggest that it is possible to replace eyestalk ablation in commercial scale shrimp hatcheries and the quality of the offspring can improve in term of resilience to environmental stress.

I would like to thank the Global Aquaculture Alliance, Labeyrie Fine Foods and Seajoy for their financial support . I would like to thank co-authors for their contribution in the project.