The present study investigated the effects of dietary allspice powder supplementation on welfare status of Tilapia, Oreochromis mossambicus assessed by hemato-immunological and serum biochemical parameters. Five diets were formulated to contain 0 (control), 5, 10, 15 or 20 g of allspice kg À1 of fish feed. Fish were fed experimental diets for 60 days. Supplementation of allspice powder at 10 g kg À1 positively influenced the serum glucose, plasma lysozyme activity and myeloperoxidase activity. Dietary allspice powder at 15 g kg À1 also positively influenced the serum biochemical parameters (total protein, albumin and globulin) and plasma lysozyme activity. However, 20 g kg À1 allspice powder group had significantly lower values of respiratory burst activity and red blood cell count than other experimental groups (P < 0.05). In conclusion, the results of the present study demonstrated that supplementation of allspice powder at 10 or 15 g kg À1 for 60 days, had beneficial effects on improvement of some immunological and serum biochemical status of O. mossambicus. These findings suggest that dietary supplementation of allspice powder might further improve the resistance to fish pathogens.
Negative impacts of introduced non-native freshwater species on native species have been increasingly recognized in the world as well as in Turkey. However, there has been relatively little attention on genetic characterization of alien freshwater fishes in their non-native distribution range and virtually no study has been conducted in Turkey despite its crucial importance in invasion biology. The purpose of this study was to elucidate genetic diversity of common non-native freshwater fish species (Carassius auratus, Carassius gibelio, Gambusia holbrooki, Lepomis gibbosus, and Pseudorasbora parva) using mitochondrial Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences; known as DNA barcodes. Through the whole dataset, seventeen haplotypes (haplotype diversity = 0.8908) were found containing 145 COI sequences. Mean Kimura two-parameter genetic distances were calculated as 0.209 for interspecific distance and 0.009 for intraspecific variation. COI barcode diversity among populations of the same species was found to be low, especially for C. gibelio, G. holbrooki, and L. gibbosus populations which were 0.5%, 0.6%, and 0.3%, respectively. Our results clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the DNA barcoding approach both for identifications at species level and revealing intraspecific variation among populations, which could be used for effective management measures for invasive species and conservation strategies for indigenous and endemic species.
Indices of condition enable the evaluation of the well-being of fish, with the assumption that heavier fish of a given length are in a better condition. Relative weight (W r ) is one of these indices; it is calculated by comparing the actual weight of a specimen with the ideal weight of a specimen in good physiological condition of the same length from the same species, i.e. standard weight (W s ). In this research, length and weight data over the distribution range for Pursak chub Squalius pursakensis, an endemic species distributed in the Sakarya and Porsuk drainages in Northwest Anatolia (Turkey), were used to compute a W s equation by means of the empirical percentile (EmP) method. The W s equation obtained was log 10 W s = -4.657 + 2.614 log 10 TL + 0.127 (log 10 TL) 2 , and the total length range of application was 80-340 mm. Since the EmP W s equation was not influenced by length variation, the use of this equation to compute the relative weight (W r ) for S. pursakensis throughout its area of distribution is suggested.
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