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Crangon crangon is economically a very important species. Recently, promising culture attempts have been made, but a major problem is the uncontrollable mortality during the grow-out phase. As of yet, the life cycle of C. crangon is not closed in captivity so wild-caught individuals are used for further rearing. Therefore, it is important to investigate the virome of C. crangon both in wild-caught animals as in cultured animals. In recent years, next-generation-sequencing (NGS) technologies have been very important in the unravelling of the virome of a wide range of environments and matrices, such as soil, sea, potable water, but also of a wide range of animal species. This will be the first report of a virome study in C. crangon using NGS in combination with the NetoVIR protocol. The near complete genomes of 16 novel viruses were described, most of which were rather distantly related to unclassified viruses or viruses belonging to the Picornavirales, Bunyavirales Nudiviridae, Parvoviridae, Flaviviridae, Hepeviridae, Tombusviridae, Narnaviridae, Nodaviridae, Sobemovirus. A difference in virome composition was observed between muscle and hepatopancreatic tissue, suggesting a distinct tissue tropism of several of these viruses. Some differences in the viral composition were noted between the cultured and wild shrimp, which could indicate that in sub-optimal aquaculture conditions some viruses become more abundant. This research showed that a plethora of unknown viruses is present in C. crangon and that more research is needed to determine which virus is potentially dangerous for the culture of C. crangon.

The European brown shrimp, Crangon crangon, is a highly valued commercial species fished in the north-eastern Atlantic, especially the North Sea. The shrimp fisheries are mainly coastal and exert high pressures on the local ecosystems, including estuaries. The culture of the species provides an alternative to supply a niche market (large live/fresh shrimps) in a sustainable manner. However, after more than a century of biological research on this species, there is still little knowledge on its optimal rearing conditions. C. crangon remains a difficult species to keep alive and healthy for an extended period of time in captivity. This review is based on a comprehensive literature search and reflects on the current status of experimental rearing techniques used for this species, identifies the problems that compromise the closing of the life cycle in captivity and provides examples on how these problem issues were solved in the culture of commercial shrimp species or other crustaceans. The ability to consistently produce highquality offspring could initiate the commercial production of this valuable shrimp. A further advantage of the ability to consistently produce high-quality offspring of this species would facilitate research on the development of new bioassays with this ecologically and economically important species in a wide variety of biochemical and physiological studies.