Estimation of the biomass production of Artemia with regard to its use in aquaculture: Temperature and strain effects

Abstract

Secondary productivity was estimated for one sexual species of the brine shrimp Artemia (Artemia tunisiana) and for two inland and two coastal parthenogenetic diploid and polyploid strains ( Artemia parthenogenetica), reared in semi-intensive cultures under different natural temperature conditions. Standing biomass and productivity were affected by temperature conditions, mode of reproduction, ploidy level and habitat temperature characteristics. At high temperatures (24–30 °C), diploid and polyploid parthenogenetic Artemia strains attained the highest biomass values and productivity of the coastal parthenogenetic diploid strain was 13 times higher than that of polyploids. Differences between the inland and coastal parthenogenetic diploid strains studied may be due to genetic adaptation to habitat temperature conditions. At low temperatures (under 15 °C) only the sexual species survived, and its production values were ten times lower than those of polyploid strains during spring and summer. Productivity was directly related to standing biomass and inversely related to individual biomass. On the basis of these results, an empirical model to predict Artemia productivity from biomass and individual dry weight data is proposed. This study provides useful information for the selection of the most suitable non Artemia franciscana strains to introduce in salterns from the Old World with a given temperature regime and it also supplies practical guidelines for the easy determination of Artemia productivity.