A novel technology towards the high-density and continuous production of the marine copepod, Pseudodiaptomus annandalei (Sewell, 1919)

• Published in: Biomass conversion and biorefinery 2024-06, Vol.14 (11), p.12041-12054
• Main Authors: Santhanam, Perumal, Marjuk, Mohammed Syed, Gunabal, Shanmugam, Sridhar, Palani, Raju, Piliyan, Ananth, Selvaraj, Nandakumar, Ravichandran, Kaviyarasan, Moorthy, Devi, Ayyanar Shenbaga, Jeyanthi, Selvakumaran, Divya, Meril, Krishnaveni, Nagarajan, Gowthami, Ayyasamy, Perumal, Pachiappan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aquaculture; Artemia; Biotechnology; Bisphenol A; Breeding; Continuous production; Effectiveness; Energy; High density; Hormones; Marine technology; Microorganisms; Original Article; Probiotics; Renewable and Green Energy; Sex hormones
• ISSN: 2190-6815; 2190-6823
• DOI: 10.1007/s13399-023-04348-w

The copepods are nutritionally superior and important live-feed organisms in aquaculture. However, attaining the high density and continuous production of copepods to fulfil the requirements of fish larval production is still a challenge, as compared to other live feeds such as artemia and rotifer. The lack of effective technology in the live feed industry failed to produce a mass density of copepods. Pseudodiaptomus annandalei is a common tropical calanoid copepod species. Hence, the present study attempted the high-density and continuous production of P. annandalei through various optimization technologies, namely, selective and induced breeding by environmental induction, hormone induction, and microbial induction. The copepod P. annandalei was tested with various selective breeding methods, i.e. (a) 18°C cold selective breeding (18°C CSB), (b) 26°C normal selective breeding (26°C NSB), and (c) non-selective breeding (control). This study reveals, compared to 18°C CSB and control copepods, the 26°C NSB copepod P. annandalei produced a significant population of 17181.6 ± 371.2 ind/l using RASC. Across the five generations, the mean nauplii production genetic gain (∆G) for G5 was 29.6% with calculated heritability (h 2 ) of 0.30. For the continuous production of copepod, P. annandalei was optimized with suitable environmental parameters. In hormone induction, 20 μg/L bisphenol A and 40 μg/L 17β-estradiol produced high NPR, but the survival rate (SR) decreased while using these hormones. In the meantime, probiotic induction gave a positive result in terms of NPR. The maximum NPR in P. annandalei was induced by Bacillus subtilis at a concentration of 10 6 CFU/mL, and probiotic induction also improved the copepod SR. Our findings provide the first concrete proof that P. annandalei would be a candidate species with favourable outcomes for selective breeding—improving its reproductive capacity.