Growth Pattern of the Tropical Sea Cucumber, Holothuria scabra, under Captivity

Abstract

The growth of the juvenile sea cucumber, Holothuria scabra, was studied under captivity to elucidate the growth variation pattern and determine the best-fit growth model to estimate age-and size-specific growth rates. Individual growth was extremely variable, with some individuals below the mean initial weight and some expanding their original body length (L) and weight (W) by up to 6.4 and 156 times, respectively; during 84 days of culture starting at 127 days of age. Some of the smallest individuals showed a higher condition factor than larger individuals in the presence of ample food, indicating that lack of food may not be the only impediment to growth. Among the three growth models compared (von Bertalanffy, Gompertz and logistic), the Gompertz model was considered optimal to express H. scabra growth; both in L and W. The age-and size-specific daily growth rate for L and W up to 365 days of age, as estimated by the Gompertz model, had a range of two and nine orders of magnitude in L (0.035 -0.96 mm/day) and W (3.4 × 10 -7 -3.5 g/day), respectively. Use of the Gompertz model over the linear model, which tends to overestimate growth rates, is encouraged to estimate the growth of H. scabra more accurately.

Assimilation of shrimp farm sediment by Holothuria scabra: a coupled fatty acid and stable isotope approach

“…This phenomenon was interpreted as a limit carrying capacity of the system for H. scabra that was reached, which is supported by the present results. Interestingly, other studies in more controlled environment (filtered seawater, washed sediment) and also testing the food addition were able to reach much higher biomass for the same species (600-900 g m À2 ) (Watanabe et al, 2014;Robinson et al, 2015Robinson et al, , 2019, showing thus that this limitation can be controlled from initial conditions. The development of the heterotrophic bacterial production through the manipulation of the C:N ration inputs could increase the system carrying capacity (Robinson et al, 2018(Robinson et al, , 2019.…”

Evaluation of the growth and survival rate of the Caribbean Sea cucumber, Isostichopus badionotus (Selenka, 1867), early juveniles produced in captivity

“…Other tropical species, including Stichopus sp. (Hu et al, ; Hu et al, ), H. scabra (Battaglene et al, ; Watanabe, Sumbing, & Lebata‐Ramos, ), and Holothuria leucospilota (Brandt, 1835; Huang et al, ), presented high variation in the GR estimations, remaining in a range from 0.1 to 1 mm/day. According to this range, the recorded GR for I. badionotus was lower than these other hatchery‐produced sea cucumber species, with about 5 months (176 DPF) required to reach 38.49 mm in mean length, with high variability.…”

Induced spawning in the sea cucumber Holothuria atra from the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea.

“…Many countries have started their own stock enhancement programme by doing research into the feasibility of tropical sea cucumber breeding (Purcell et al, 2011(Purcell et al, , 2014Eriksson et al, 2014;Watanabe et al, 2014). The development of three commercial sea cucumbers, Holothuria scabra, H. fuscogilva and Actinopyga mauritiana was studied by Ramofafia et al (2003).…”

“…This continuous over-exploitation is likely to have a huge impact on the ecosystem and marine environment as a whole (Conand 2004). Research on the feasibility of restocking and stock enhancement of tropical sea cucumber have been conducted in many tropical countries (Purcell et al, 2011(Purcell et al, , 2014Eriksson et al, 2014;Watanabe et al, 2014).…”