Different microbiome profiles of three commercial Artemia used in fish larviculture

Abstract

Supplement of live food in aquaculture is a major factor in determining aquaculture production, of which brine shrimp Artemia is the most popular live diet for aquaculture animals including fish and shrimp juveniles. Since the microbiota present in the Artemia may contribute to that colonization in larvae, various microorganisms transmitted from Artemia can control the health of the larvae. Therefore, the microbiome composition of Artemia plays an essential role in aquaculture productivity, however, it has not been well studied, yet. In this study, we characterized the hatching efficiency of Artemia cysts supplied by different manufacturers, namely, Aqua, RED, and SEP, and analyzed their microbial community in rearing water and nauplius. While the hatching time and rate of Artemia were shown to be species-specific, the nauplius microbiome exhibited different compositions depending on the species; In diversity analysis, the rearing water samples had significantly different alpha-diversity whereas nauplius samples were not different and all samples were clustered with each other in beta-diversity. In the microbiome of nauplius, there was a noticeable difference between Aqua and others, with the largest proportion of genus of alcanivorax in Aqua and exiguobacterium in SEP and RED. In the rearing water of Atermia, Altermonas accounted for the largest proportion in SEP while Alcanivorax was the most predominant in Aqua and RED. Our results highlight that the microbial community of Artemia would be differed depending on the manufacturer, possibly due to different culture environment, and also imply that their compositions would occupy an important role in aquaculture production.