Effects of ammonia nitrogen on early growth and survival of the ‘Zebra 2’ strain of the manila clam ( Ruditapes philippinarum )

Abstract

Marine aquaculture in China has developed very quickly in the last few decades, and the marine molluscs count for the highest proportion (~78.6%) of the total aquatic production of the culturing species (Tang et al., 2016). Marine molluscs, especially bivalves, intake food by filtering organic particles from the environment (Frankic & Hershner, 2003), which was transformed into ammonia during their feeding through transformation and catabolism and has some adverse effects on the marine environment (Yuan et al., 2008(Yuan et al., , 2011. Also, rapid development of human society produces many organic pollutants containing nitrogen through different anthropogenic activities which brings serious stress to the marine animals. So, we cannot ignore ammonia pollution in intensive culturing environment of marine bivalves around the coastlines of China (Cong et al., 2019).The Manila clam, Ruditapes philippinarum, is an important aquaculture species. It is widely distributed throughout the world and is famous for its delicious taste and high nutritional value (Nie et al.,