Tolerance to captivity of a Holothuria tubulosa broodstock
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1
MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, ESTM, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Peniche, Portugal., Portugal
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2
Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, Portugal
Holothuria tubulosa (Gmelin, 1788) is a marine invertebrate, belonging to the group Echinodermata, usually known as sea cucumber. Its geographical distribution extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and it is frequently associated to sandy and rocky areas, as well as sea meadows. Generally, they occur at depths less than 100 m. The sea cucumbers are very sensitive and in conditions of stress they can easily eviscerate, which may lead to the death of the organisms. This study aimed to evaluate the stress induced by the catch, transport and triage of H. tubulosa. One hundred specimens were captured in the Sado Estuary (Setúbal, Portugal) resorting to diving and acclimated in thermic containers (46 L) with seawater and constant aeration, with around 15 animals per container. Acclimation, including transport to MARE-IPLeiria, had the duration of 3 hours. At the facilities, sea cucumbers were weighed, measured and distributed randomly in 3 tanks of 400 L and kept in densities of 20.3 kg m-3. The quality of water was monitored daily, with a measured temperature of 15.1 ±1.1 °C, dissolved oxygen of 6.9 ±0.5 mg L-1, salinity of 34 ±1 and pH of 8.3 ±0.1. The maximum value to the concentration of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates were controlled and was established as 1 mg.L-1. H. tubulosa presented a mean weight of 264.46 ±78.19 g and a submersed mean length of 27.30 ±3.77 cm. Although there were no registered mortalities throughout the trial, evisceration occurred in 3.33% of the individuals. The results suggest H. tubulosa is resistant to catch, transport and handling, representing an advantage for its use in laboratorial trials, with scientific purposes or on a commercial level. Considering the high demand of sea cucumbers worldwide and H. tubulosa 's high tolerance to stress and relatively large size, these organisms present strong advantages for aquaculture.
Acknowledgements
This work was financed by the Operational Program Mar2020. It received further financial support from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (project UID/MAR/04292/2013 and A.C. Brito with the Research Programme – IF/00331/2013).
Keywords:
echinoderm,
Echinoculture,
sea cucumber,
transport,
Aquaculture
Conference:
IMMR'18 | International Meeting on Marine Research 2018, Peniche, Portugal, 5 Jul - 6 Jul, 2018.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Aquaculture
Citation:
Venâncio
E,
Félix
PM,
Brito
AC,
Sousa
JN,
Azevedo E Silva
FH,
Simões
TD,
Raposo
AG,
Moreira Dos Santos
PC,
Baptista
TM and
Pombo
A
(2019). Tolerance to captivity of a Holothuria tubulosa broodstock.
Front. Mar. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
IMMR'18 | International Meeting on Marine Research 2018.
doi: 10.3389/conf.FMARS.2018.06.00059
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Received:
27 Apr 2018;
Published Online:
07 Jan 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Miss. Eliana Venâncio, MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, ESTM, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Peniche, Portugal., Peniche, Portugal, eliana.venancio@ipleiria.pt