A comparative study on growth, protein turnover and energy budget of green and white color morphs of sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus (Selenka)

Abstract

A 98 d experiment was conducted to compare the growth performance, protein turnover and energy budget between green and white color morphs of the sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus. During the experiment, sea cucumbers were fed a single natural diet of Sargassum thunbergii and a premixed artificial diet. Results showed that there was no significant interaction of diet, species or experimental time on growth performance and feed utilization of A. japonicus. Specific growth rate (SGR) of green sea cucumber was significantly higher than that of white sea cucumber. Green sea cucumber fed S. thunbergii exhibited much higher food conversion efficiency (FCE) and protein efficiency ratio (PER) compared to those on the artificial diet, indicating preferential absorption of S. thunbergii. There were also significant discrepancies in body wall production rate (BWPR), crude protein and ash content between green and white sea cucumber. The observed δ 15 N values gradually increased owing to the assimilation of the diets containing higher nitrogen stable isotope ratios. Green sea cucumber reflected and approached δ 15 N values of the experimental diets much more quickly and with shorter half-lives than white sea cucumber. The relatively constant metabolic contributions in intestine (71 to 78%) and body wall (46 to 52%) of sea cucumber indicated a stable bioenergetic distribution strategy of tissue. According to the time-based turnover model, the estimated fractionation (Δ 15 N) ranged from 2.37 to 3.30 ‰. The average formulas of energy allocation for green and white sea cucumber were: 100C = 7.8G + 53.1F + 6.2U + 32.8R, 100C = 6.3G + 57.9F + 8.9U + 27.0R, respectively. Taken together, our results suggest that white sea cucumber may have higher dietary quality requirements for growth and metabolism than green sea cucumber.KEY WORDS: Apostichopus japonicus · Growth · Nitrogen stable isotope · Protein turnover · Energy allocation OPEN PEN ACCESS CCESSA comparative study on growth, protein turnover and energy budget of green and white color morphs of sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus (Selenka)

Effects of different stocking densities on the CO2 fluxes at water-air interface and the respiration metabolism in sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus (Selenka)

“…Mean DOC concentration in D8 was significantly higher than the others (Zhang et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2022), which might influence the surrounding water environment counteracting self-growth, and resulting in the lowest feeding carbon content and the lowest metabolism carbon (Hou et al, 2017). Nitrogen is well known as a major element in protein, the content of which directly represents the utilization efficiency of protein in organisms (Xia et al, 2017b;Xia et al, 2017a). In the present study, it has been found that the percent of G N /C N and G N / A N were negatively correlated with stocking densities, while a positive correlation was detected in the percent of U N /A N and F N /C N with stocking densities.…”

Physiological and immunological responses of sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus during desiccation and subsequent resubmersion

“…Sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus (Selenka) is an important mariculture species in China. The farming scale has been rapidly expanded in the last decades due to the increasing market demand (Xia et al, 2017b). The production of this species has reached 220,000 t in 2017, with 110% increase compared to 2009 (MOAC, 2010; MOAC, 2018).…”

Influence of Dietary Phosphorus on the Growth, Feed Utilization, Proximate Composition, Intestinal Enzymes, and Oxidation Resistance of Sea Cucumber Apostichopus japonicus

“…During the feeding trial, A. japonicus grew from 9.99 g to 14.67–21.60 g with an acceptable SGR (0.71–1.11%/d), as compared to the growth data from other studies [ 17 , 48 – 50 ]. These positive growth responses fit quadratic regression models and thus confirm that phosphorus deficiency or excess could hinder the growth of A. japonicus as reported in a previous study on tiger shrimp [ 26 ].…”