DIFFERENT SOURCES AND LEVELS OF DIETARY PHOSPHOLIPIDS IN LOW FISH MEAL BASED DIETS FOR SEA BREAM (SPARUS AURATA)

Abstract

Plant meals are good alternatives to fish meal when used in aqua feeds for a big number of cultured fish (Nengas et al., 1996; Refstie et al., 2001; Kaushik et al., 2004) including sea bream (Benedito Palos et al. 2007). Phospholipids and their role in fish nutrition have been recently reviewed by Tocher et al. (2008). Growth improvement in larvae and juvenile fish, increased survival and decreased incidences of malformation and even increase in stress resistance are some of the beneficial effects of dietary phospholipids. The total content of phospholipids as well as the phospholipids profile may vary between different types of fish meals and plant meals (Sargent et al., 2002). Therefore, substituting fish meal with plant alternatives may affect the dietary phospholipids levels highlighting the importance of meeting fish requirements for these nutrients. However, only few studies have focused on phospholipids requirements of fish, namely in larvae of pikeperch (Hamza et al., 2011), sea bream (Saleh et al., 2012a; Saleh et al., 2012b) and juvenile fish of cobia (Trushenski et al., 2011). Therefore, the objectives of the present study was to investigate the effects of two different sources of phospholipids at three different dietary levels on growth performance, feed utilization, liver histology, and fatty acid profile of polar and neutral lipids of liver, muscle and intestine of sea bream.