Aquaculture is the second fastest growing sector after the Internet (6% per year; SOFIA Report FAO, 2009), and this expansion is largely taking place in Asia where huge investments are made to sustain the development of the industry.
”In which context does your project take place ?
”What's the main goal of the DEN-SELECT project?
One of the main challenges in aquaculture resides in the optimization of rearing food
For some weeks before weaning, some fish larvae have to be reared using live prey. Rotifers and Artemia species are mostly used at this stage and have proven in many cases to be inadequate – either for rearing established species or breeding new species of fish. Poor food resource in the early growth stage leads to an increase of discarded fishes and/or a decrease of their marketing potential. The multi-million Euro losses due to these problems are a serious concern for the aquaculture industry.
Copepods, as a supplementary food, have been proven to improve fish larval qualify
Copepods, the most numerous multicellular organism on earth(1), act as food for planktivorous fish and many fish larvae at early stages(2). They are well known to be a more appropriate diet for marine fish larvae than both enriched Artemia and rotifers.
Currently used as a supplementary food in the semi-extensive culture of marine fish species, Copepods have been proven to improve fish larval quality(3). However, they are not widely used, due to difficulties in rearing sufficient quantities.
(1) Mauchline 1998
(2) Fenchel 1988
(3) Kraul 1983; McEvoy et al. 1998; Nanton and Castell 1999; Shields et al. 1999
Innovating in copepod culture is one of the key to secure future marine fish fry production
Projects launched to palliate the lack of knowledge about copepod culture around the world are oriented toward the replacement of food items for copepods but rarely exploit novel lines of approach.
The main objective of the DEN-SELECT project is to innovate in copepod culture systems to secure future marine fish fry production. The project will specifically investigate two novel approaches for the optimization of copepod culture: the density effects on production as well as the strain selection.