Abstract
Coastal protection, nutrient cycling, erosion control, water purification, and carbon sequestration are ecosystem services provided by salt marshes. Additionally, salt ponds offer coastal breeding and a nursery habitat for fishes and they provide abundant invertebrates, such as amphipods, which are potentially useful as a resource in aquaculture. Fishmeal and fish oil are necessary food resources to support aquaculture of carnivorous species due to their omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LC-PUFA). Currently, aquaculture depends on limited fisheries and feed with elevated n-3 LC-PUFA levels, but the development of more sustainable food sources is necessary. Amphipods appear to be a potential high quality alternative feed resource for aquaculture. Hence, a nutritional study was carried out for several main amphipod species—Microdeutopus gryllotalpa, Monocorophium acherusicum, Gammarus insensibilis, Melita palmata and Cymadusa filosa—in terrestrial ponds in the South of Spain. These species showed high protein content (up to 40%), high n-3 PUFA and phospholipid levels, and high levels of phophatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and triacylglycerols (TAG), the latter being significantly high for M. acherusicum. M. gryllotalpa and M. acherusicum showed the highest proportion of lipids (19.15% and 18.35%, respectively). Isoleucine, glycine and alanine were the dominant amino acids in all species. In addition, amphipods collected from ponds showed low levels of heavy metals. Furthermore, the biochemical profiles of the five species of amphipods have been compared with other studied alternative prey. Therefore, pond amphipods are good candidates to be used as feed, and are proposed as a new sustainable economic resource to be used in aquaculture. G. insensibilis may be the best for intensive culture as an alternative feed resource because it shows: (1) adequate n-3 PUFA and PL composition; (2) high levels of glycine, alanine, tyrosine, isoleucine and lysine; (3) high natural densities; (4) large body size (≥1 cm), and (5) high concentration of calcium. Moreover, a combined culture of amphipods and fishes in these marsh ponds seems a promising and environmentally sustainable way to develop Integrate Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) in these ecosystems.
Highlights
Saltmarshes are aquatic systems with many ecosystem services arising from ecosystem processes and functions such as: coastal protection, nutrient cycling, erosion control, water purification, and carbon sequestration (Barbier et al, 2011)
With the aim to select the more adequate amphipods from terrestrial ponds as alternative prey, we studied the composition of the dominant species
SNK tests revealed that M. gryllotalpa and M. acherusicum had a higher proportion of lipids (19.15% ± 0.48 and 18.35 ± 0.23, respectively, mean ± standard deviation) than the other three species, G. insensibilis (12.98 ± 2.01), M. palmata (15.9 ± 2.50) and C. filosa (13.42 ± 1.68)
Summary
Saltmarshes are aquatic systems with many ecosystem services arising from ecosystem processes and functions such as: coastal protection, nutrient cycling, erosion control, water purification, and carbon sequestration (Barbier et al, 2011). Some salt marshes, such as those located in Southern Spain, require anthropogenic activities (hydraulic control, wall conservation, sediment removal, etc.) to be economically sustainable in the context of aquaculture (Arias & Drake, 1999). These modified saltmarshes provide, services as a coastal breeding and nursery habitat, and are used by locals for the practice of a kind of extensive aquaculture generating economic activity. Gastropods, amphipods and chironomid larvae dominate the macrofauna in terms of abundance (Arias & Drake, 1994)
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