Society for Technology, Environment, Science & People
Abstract
It is of note that the capture fisheries are under stress for many targeted species. To reduce the pressure on the wild, research on mariculture had been practicing for decades. Even though technologies for captive breeding are standardized, the growth and survival of the larvae of candidate marine fish species are still not up to the mark. It is necessary to focus and encourage new approaches to standardize the hatchery protocol for enhanced production and sustainable management towards future demands. The major concern facing the marine fish hatchery is the delivery of nutritionally enriched feeds to the larvae. Inadequate nutrition is one of the major reasons for early mortality, weaning mortality, cannibalism, inadequate growth, lowered immunity etc. In India, nutrigenomics research is an up-and-coming field, especially the transcriptomics approach that can be applied to understand the gene expression profile of the larvae and juveniles with respect to nutritional interventions. By means of RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) technology, a clear understanding of the growth, development, metabolism, immune function, stress, adaptation and differential gene expression is possible. In addition, the specific effects of selected nutrients on targeted genes can be studied to alter the diet composition accordingly for improving the growth, condition and survival of candidate species of marine fish larvae. This novel approach has the potential to unravel valuable information required to address the issues in marine fish larval nutrition and for the development of species and life-stage specific micro-feeds for sustainable larviculture
