Dietary fatty acid enrichment during the spawning season increases egg viability and quality inHippocampus hippocampus

Abstract

Control of the reproductive cycle is essential to achieve a successful aquaculture industry. Seahorse reared in captivity often shows eggs of poor quality and low offspring survival due to unsuitable rearing and nutritional protocols. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of dietary enrichment, added exclusively during the spawning season, on the egg quality of Hippocampus hippocampus. The effect of enriching mysis throughout the spawning season was analysed in terms of female fecundity, egg viability, egg size and fatty acid profile. The results showed that fecundity was not affected by the enrichment of the diet, but egg viability was increased when females were fed the enriched mysis (84.9 AE 4.1% compared to 62.2 AE 9.4%). Moreover, the content of several 22:5n-6, sum of n-6) decreased throughout the spawning season, especially in the last clutch, in eggs originated from females fed non-enriched mysis. Eggs from females fed the enriched diet maintained the fatty acid profile throughout the spawning season. In conclusion, enrichment of the diet of H. hippocampus improved egg viability and avoided a decrease in the quality of eggs by maintaining PUFA content in the last clutches of the spawning season.

A multidisciplinary experimental study on the effects of breeders diet on newborn seahorses (Hippocampus guttulatus)

“…Premature newborn or egg clutch dropping were not observed, contrarily to previous ndings in H. hippocampus fed on Artemia (Otero-Ferrer et al, 2012) or commercial mysidaceans (i.e. much lower DHA and HUFA levels than in the present study) (Saavedra et al, 2015), and in H. guttulatus fed on suboptimal quality of Artemia (i.e. high lipid and low DHA content) (Planas et al, 2009a(Planas et al, , 2010.…”

“…As the TEM did not show any morphological alteration in tissues of newborn from diet M, we suspect that n-3 HUFA and DHA levels in diet M were below detrimental levels, and that the low breeding success in that treatment was due in part to energetic and/or nutritional dietary de ciencies. It is known that egg viability may decrease in lower quality diets (Saavedra et al, 2015), which is in agreement with the reduced newborn production in diets A and M. As eggs dropping did not occur in our study and female-male egg transfers were not checked, viability in eggs transferred to males is not available. Hence, the reasons for that low performance are uncertain.…”

“…sex ratio, aquaria design, seahorse size) (Woods et al, 2000;Dzyuba et al, 2006;Planas et al, 2008;Faleiro et al, 2008Faleiro et al, , 2016, and biological / physiological features (Boisseau, 1967;Carcupino et al, 2002;Poortenaar et al, 2004;Stölting and Wilson, 2007;Scobell and MacKenzie, 2011;Zhang et al, 2019; Wittington and Fresien, 2020). Only a few studies have focused on the effects of feeding and dietary sources on breeding success and newborn features in seahorses under ex-situ conditions (Lin et al, 2007;Faleiro and Narciso, 2010;Binh and Serrano, 2012;Saavedra et al, 2015;Palma et al, 2012Palma et al, , 2017Otero-Ferrer et al, 2012.…”

A Multidisciplinary Experimental Study on the Effects of Breeders Diet on Newborn Seahorses (Hippocampus guttulatus)

“…Reproduction in seahorses has received increasing attention in recent years, mostly on the effect of environment (e.g., photoperiod regime and temperature) (Lin et al, 2006(Lin et al, , 2008bPlanas et al, 2010Planas et al, , 2013 zootechnical conditions (e.g., sex ratio, aquaria design, and seahorse size) (Woods, 2000;Dzyuba et al, 2006;Faleiro et al, 2008Faleiro et al, , 2016Planas et al, 2008) and biological / physiological features (Boisseau, 1967;Carcupino et al, 2002;Poortenaar et al, 2004;Stölting and Wilson, 2007;Scobell and MacKenzie, 2011;Zhang et al, 2019;Wittington and Friesen, 2020). Only a few studies have focused on the effects of feeding and dietary sources on breeding success and newborn features in seahorses under ex-situ conditions (Lin et al, 2007;Faleiro and Narciso, 2010;Binh and Serrano, 2012;Otero-Ferrer et al, 2012Palma et al, 2012Palma et al, , 2017Saavedra et al, 2015).…”

Avances en el cultivo de Hippocampus spp. (Teleostei: Syngnathidae): investigaciones en el siglo XXI

“…Sin embargo, sólo recientemente se han conocido algunos procesos claves que permiten avanzar en la comprensión de la fisiología de la nutrición en los caballitos de mar. Se ha demostrado que el enriquecimiento de las dietas con ácidos grasos tiene efectos benéficos en la calidad de los ovocitos producidos por las hembras, y el perfil de ácidos grasos de la dieta tiene un efecto directo sobre su perfil en los huevos (Planas et al, 2010;Saavedra et al, 2013Saavedra et al, , 2015. Asimismo, estudios recientes han demostrado que el contenido de ácidos grasos altamente insaturados de cadena larga en la dieta, en particular el ADH, es un factor indispensable en el buen desempeño (crecimiento y supervivencia) de juveniles de H. erectus (Vite-García et al, 2014b;Zhang et al, 2015a), ya que cumplen funciones importantes como promover el metabolismo de lípidos, reducir los productos de la peroxidación de lípidos y mejorar la defensa antioxidante en los juveniles (Yin et al, 2012).…”