Despite considerable progress in recent years, many questions regarding fish larval nutrition remain largely unanswered, and several research avenues remain open. A holistic understanding of the supply line of nutrients is important for developing diets for use in larval culture and for the adaptation of rearing conditions that meet the larval requirements for the optimal presentation of food organisms and/or microdiets. The aim of the present review is to revise the state of the art and to pinpoint the gaps in knowledge regarding larval nutritional requirements, the nutritional value of live feeds and challenges and opportunities in the development of formulated larval diets.

28 páginas, 2 tablas. Special Issue: Basic and Applied Aspects of Aquaculture Nutrition: Healthy Fish for Healthy Consumers. The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.comDespite the recent progress in the production of inert diets for fish larvae, feeding of most species of interest for aquaculture still relies on live feeds during the early life stages. Independently of their nutritional value, live feeds are easily detected and captured, due to their swimming movements in the water column, and highly digestible, given their lower nutrient concentration (water content>80%). The present paper reviews the main types of live feeds used in aquaculture, their advantages and pitfalls, with a special emphasis on their nutritional value and the extent to which this can be manipulated. The most commonly used live feeds in aquaculture are rotifers (Brachionus sp.) and brine shrimp (Artemia sp.), due to the existence of standardized cost-effective protocols for their mass production. However, both rotifers and Artemia have nutritional deficiencies for marine species, particularly in essential n-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA, e.g., docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid). Enrichment of these live feeds with HUFA-rich lipid emulsions may lead to an excess dietary lipid and sub-optimal dietary protein content for fish larvae. In addition, rotifers and Artemia are likely to have sub-optimal dietary levels of some amino acids, vitamins and minerals, at least for some species. Several species of microalgae are also used in larviculture. These are used as feed for other live feeds, but mostly in the ‘green water’ technique in fish larval rearing, with putative beneficial effects on feeding behaviour, digestive function, nutritional value, water quality and microflora. Copepods and other natural zooplankton organisms have also been used as live feeds, normally with considerably better results in terms of larval survival rates, growth and quality, when compared with rotifers and Artemia. Nonetheless, technical difficulties in mass-producing these organisms are still a constraint to their routine use. Improvements in inert microdiets will likely lead to a progressive substitution of live feeds. However, complete substitution is probably years away for most species, at least for the first days of feeding.This review was partially supported by projects: POCI/MAR/61623/2004 – SAARGO, financed by program POCI 2010 (FCT, Portugal), which is co-financed by FEDER; and project P06-AGR-01697 funded by Consejería Innovación, Ciencia y Empresa – Junta de Andalucía (Spain)+FEDER.Peer reviewe

Enhanced production of high quality and healthy fry is a key target for a successful and competitive expansion of the aquaculture industry. Although large quantities of fish larvae are produced, survival rates are often low or highly variable and growth potential is in most cases not fully exploited, indicating significant gaps in our knowledge concerning optimal nutritional and culture conditions. Understanding the mechanisms that control early development and muscle growth are critical for the identification of time windows in development that introduce growth variation, and improve the viability and quality of juveniles. This literature review of the current state of knowledge aims to provide a framework for a better understanding of fish skeletal muscle ontogeny, and its impact on larval and juvenile quality as broadly defined. It focuses on fundamental biological knowledge relevant to larval phenotype and quality and, in particular, on the factors affecting the development of skeletal muscle. It also discusses the available methodologies to assess growth and larvae/juvenile quality, identifies gaps in knowledge and suggests future research directions. The focus is primarily on the major farmed non‐salmonid fish species in Europe that include gilthead sea bream, European sea bass, turbot, Atlantic cod, Senegalese sole and Atlantic halibut.

Fish held at high stocking densities are generally exposed to chronic stress situations that impose severe energy demands and may predispose the fish to infection. Senegalese sole Solea senegalensis (Kaup) juveniles (78.8±18.9 g body weight) were maintained at low (LSD; 4 kg m⁻² at the end of the experiment), medium (MSD; 9 kg m⁻²) and high (HSD; 14 kg m⁻²) stocking densities during a period of 63 days. Although disease outbreaks were observed in fish reared at HSD, growth and food consumption did not vary among different treatments. Results from plasma cortisol and free amino acids (FAAs) showed significant differences among different rearing densities pointing to HSD as stressful rearing condition. However, higher plasma glucose and osmolality levels indicated that fish held at MSD may also be under stress. The higher usage of FAAs from the HSD group may be due to the higher demand for energy production in order to cope with stressful rearing conditions, higher rate of protein synthesis or due to synthesis of other important metabolites related to stress response. Therefore, results from the present study point out to HSD as a stressful rearing condition and suggest that crowding stress may affect amino acid requirements.