Abstract
Wild fish domestication can be considered a strategic approach to endangered species conservation, supporting studies and reducing economic and environmental costs. Three of the most important strategies in the domestication processes of fish are the adaptation of wild fish to captivity, the reproduction of the adapted fish and the production and maintenance of the young individuals. That being said, the present study is divided in three experiments: the 1st aimed to adapt wild Pseudopimelodus mangurus to captivity environment using different feeding approaches and a prophylactic strategie; the 2nd aimed to reproduce the adapted individuals from the 1st experiment; and the 3rd aimed to train the P. mangurus juveniles to accept commercial diets. The 1st and 2nd experiments were successful at the maintenance and artificial reproduction of P. mangurus kept in tanks between the reproductive seasons. The results suggest that the reproductive performance of animals kept in captivity (initial relative fertility-IRF = 609.25 ± 36.6 eggs/g) was similar (p > 0,05) to the performance found in wild individuals (IRF = 679.21 ± 45.66 eggs/g). Feed training of P. mangurus juveniles (3rd experiment) was also conducted, evaluating three feeding treatments with different concentrations of bovine heart and ration. At the end of the experiment, the treatment containing half bovine heart and half commercial feeding resulted in the highest values of weight gain (0.10 ± 0.16 g), specific growth rate (0.37 ± 0.11 mm), length (47.78 ± 2.35 mm) and growth (2.15 ± 2.27 mm), suggesting reasonable acceptability to artificial diets in the cultivation of this species. As conclusion, the present study contributes with the development of techniques for the domestication of fresh water fish species with commercial value or andangered of extinction, showing the domestication and reproduction of wild P. mangurus in captivity. However, more studies have to be conducted in order to improve the acceptance of artificial feeding by juveniles and to increase their survival rate.
Highlights
Anthropogenic activities such as changes in the natural courses of rivers, pollution, deforestation, introduction of alien species and overfishing are deleterious to natural fish populations (Sobjak et al, 2017)
Feeding management in Siluriformes is still challenging for many species as in the case of P. mangurus, and this study is the first report for the species
The analysis performed in the experiment showed no preference among the provided feeds, the tetra diet presented a faster acceptance than the other 2 treatments and it is the diet that comes closest to P. mangurus natural diet, being A. altiparanae used as bait and observed in the stomach content of P. mangurus that died during collection and were necropsied
Summary
Anthropogenic activities such as changes in the natural courses of rivers, pollution, deforestation, introduction of alien species and overfishing are deleterious to natural fish populations (Sobjak et al, 2017) Environmental disasters, such as occurred in the Brazilian cities of Mariana (2015) and Brumadinho (2019), leads to almost instantaneous death of hundreds of thousands of fish species and other life forms, strongly affecting the natural fish stocks and, the regional socioeconomic activities (Carvalho et al, 2017; Santos et al, 2018; Lopes et al, 2019; Pereira et al, 2019; Rudorff et al, 2018). In the case of carnivorous species, the administration of live fish does not give satisfactory results because the fish does not eat for long periods after capturing, period in which survival is critical
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