Fish held at high stocking densities are generally exposed to chronic stress situations that impose severe energy demands and may predispose the ¢sh to infection. Senegalese sole Solea senegalensis (Kaup) juveniles (78.8 AE 18.9 g body weight) were maintained at low (LSD; 4 kg m À 2 at the end of the experiment), medium (MSD; 9 kg m À 2 ) and high (HSD;14 kg m À 2 ) stocking densities during a period of 63 days. Although disease outbreaks were observed in ¢sh reared at HSD, growth and food consumption did not vary among di¡erent treatments. Results from plasma cortisol and free amino acids (FAAs) showed signi¢cant di¡erences among di¡erent rearing densities pointing to HSD as stressful rearing condition. However, higher plasma glucose and osmolality levels indicated that ¢sh held at MSD may also be under stress. The higher usage of FAAs from the HSD group may be due to the higher demand for energy production in order to cope with stressful rearing conditions, higher rate of protein synthesis or due to synthesis of other important metabolites related to stress response. Therefore, results from the present study point out to HSD as a stressful rearing condition and suggest that crowding stress may a¡ect amino acid requirements.

Senegalese sole was one of the earliest identified candidate species with high potential for aquaculture diversification in the south of Europe. Its culture has been possible, and commercially attempted, for several decades, but intensive production has been slow to take off. This has been explained mostly by serious disease problems, high mortality at weaning, variable growth and poor juvenile quality. However, a strong and sustained research investment that started in the eighties has led to a better understanding of the requirements and particularities of this species. More recently, better management and technical improvements have been introduced, which have led to important progress in productivity and given a new impetus to the cultivation of Senegalese sole. As a result, the last 5 years have marked a probable turning point in the culture of sole towards the development of a knowledge-driven, competitive and sustainable industry. This review will focus on the main technical improvements and advances in the state of knowledge that have been made in the last decade in areas as diverse as reproductive biology, behaviour, physiology, nutritional requirements, modulation of the immune system in response to environmental parameters and stress, and characterization and mitigation of the main disease threats. It is now clear that Senegalese sole has important particularities that differentiate it from other current and candidate marine aquaculture species, which bring about important challenges, some still unsolved, but also notable opportunities (e.g. a nutritional physiology that is better adapted to dietary vegetable ingredients), as will be discussed here.

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To improve the formulation of diets for the early stages of marine fish, assimilation rates of free amino acids (FAA) and protein in postlarval Senegal sole (Solea senegalensis) were determined. Fish (2.45 +/- 0.87 mg dry weight) were tube fed 36 nL of a diet of FAA containing L-[(35)S] methionine (FAA diet) or bovine serum albumin, containing L-[methylated-(14)C]bovine serum albumin (Prot-diet), both at a concentration of 4.08 g/L. A time series was performed, and the amounts of label in incubation water, liver, gut and body carcass were quantified. The FAA diet was absorbed with a 3.5-times-higher transfer rate (P < 0.001) from the gut into the larval body tissues compared with the Prot-diet. The FAA diet also was assimilated with greater efficiency than the Prot-diet (80% versus 58%, P: = 0.001). If we assume that the label present in the gut represents amino acids incorporated into the intestinal tissue, the assimilation efficiencies for the two diets were 89 and 64%. Therefore, FAA seems to be superior to protein as a dietary source of amino acids in Senegal sole postlarvae. However, because the absorption dynamics of protein and FAA differ, care should be taken when using the sources together to avoid amino acid imbalance.