The gut microbiota of marine fish

The body of work relating to the gut microbiota of fish is dwarfed by that on humans and mammals. However, it is a field that has had historical interest and has grown significantly along with the expansion of the aquaculture industry and developments in microbiome research. Research is now moving quickly in this field. Much recent focus has been on nutritional manipulation and modification of the gut microbiota to meet the needs of fish farming, while trying to maintain host health and welfare. However, the diversity amongst fish means that baseline data from wild fish and a clear understanding of the role that specific gut microbiota play is still lacking. We review here the factors shaping marine fish gut microbiota and highlight gaps in the research

Vibrio-inhibiting Marine Bacteria Isolated from Black Tiger Shrimp Hatchery

Forty five strains of marine bacteria which showed inhibitory activities against bacterial swarming were isolated from larval black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon), brine shrimp (Anemia salina) nauplii and rearing seawater in Thailand. These marine bacteria were examined by a double-layer plate method for their growth-inhibiting abilities against 50 strains of vibrios isolated from similar sources. As a result, 27 strains among 45 marine bacteria examined inhibited 32 to 94% of the vibrios tested. These Vibrio-inhibiting strains also exhibited inhibitory activities against 52 to 96% of the reference strains of 27 species of Vibrio including fish and shellfish pathogens. The inhibition was exhibited bactericidally, and antibiotics were produced extracellularly and inactivated by heat treatment at 70°C for 30 min. All the 27 strains of antibiotic producers were identified as Alteromonas-like organisms based on their taxonomical characteristics including G + C values of DNA (42.4-45.3 mol %)

Quantitative Trait Locus Mapping of Growth‐related Traits in Inter‐specific F1 Hybrid Grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus x E. lanceolatus) in a Tropical Climate

Growth‐related traits are the main target of genetic breeding programmes in grouper aquaculture. We constructed genetic linkage maps for tiger grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus) and giant grouper (E. lanceolatus) using 399 simple sequence repeat markers and performed a quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis to identify the genomic regions responsible for growth‐related traits in F1 hybrid grouper (E. fuscoguttatus × E. lanceolatus). The tiger grouper (female) linkage map contained 330 markers assigned to 24 linkage groups (LGs) and spanned 1,202.0 cM. The giant grouper (male) linkage map contained 231 markers distributed in 24 LGs and spanned 953.7 cM. Six QTLs affecting growth‐related traits with 5% genome‐wide significance were detected on different LGs. Four QTLs were identified for total length and body weight on Efu_LG8, 10, 13 and 19 on the tiger grouper map, which explained 6.6%–12.0% of the phenotypic variance. An epistatic QTL with a reciprocal association was observed between Efu_LG8 and 10. Two QTLs were identified for body weight on Ela_LG3 and 10 on the giant grouper map, which explained 6.9% of the phenotypic variance. Two‐way analysis of variance indicated that the QTL on Efu_LG13 interacts with the QTLs on Ela_LG3 and 10 with large effects on body weight. Furthermore, these six QTLs showed different features among the winter, summer and rainy seasons, suggesting that environmental factors and fish age affected these QTLs. These findings will be useful to understand the genetic structure of growth and conduct genetic breeding in grouper species.This research was supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency/Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (JST/JICA, SATREPS)