RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN NUTRITION AND MICROPARTICULATE DIETS OF LARVALPRAWNS

There is little information on the nutritional requirements of larval prawns as compared with those of juveniles and growers. The introducti on of microparticulate diets for rearing prawns has shed light on this area. This paper presents an overview of the nutritional requirements of larval prawns, which were mostly clarified in our laboratory, focu sing on unique aspects of the requirements of prawns for lipid-soluble nutrients, along with protein, peptides and amino acids. The prawn Pe naeus japonicus was successfully reared with a microparticulate diet f rom nauplius to postlarval stages without using any live food. The lar val prawn requires dietary sources of sterols and some phospholipids a s indispensable nutrients for normal growth and survival. Metabolic st udies were conducted to clarity the nutritional role of dietary phosph olipids in the prawn. Tracer experiments using radioactive lipids sugg ested that dietary phospholipids take part in the transport of dietary lipids, especially cholesterol, through the hemolymph in their body. The larval prawn sustained good growth and high survival when reared o n diets with essential amino acid profiles simulated to those of larva l whole body proteins. Some low molecular weight nitrogen compounds su ch as peptides (Ala-Gly-Gly, Ala-Val, Gly-Gly-Gly) and betaine had a g rowth-promoting effect on the larval prawn.