ABSTRACT
Marine fi sh larval culture is one of the main bottlenecks in the aquaculture industry. At hatching, most of the organs of marine fi sh larvae are not fully developed, and developmental processes initiated during embryogenesis continue during larval development in order to ensure the proper ontogenesis of organs and associated physiological functions, essential for the survival of individuals. Consequently, during the fi rst weeks of life, marine fi sh larvae undergo signifi cant morphological and physiological modifi cations to acquire all the adult features by the end of the larval period. This phase is certainly the most critical in the life cycle of fi sh, not only in natural environments, but also under controlled conditions. In aquaculture, in spite of the many advances made to control environmental cues, this stage of production can still suffer from substantial mortality or
1 IRTA, Centre de Sant Carles de la Ràpita (IRTA-SCR), Unitat de Cultius Experimentals, Crta. del Poble Nou s/n, 43540 Sant Carles de la Ràpita, Spain. 2 Centro de Ciências do Mar (CCMAR/CIMAR-LA), Universidade do Algarve, Campus de Gambelas, 8005-139 Faro, Portugal. 3 Department of Physiology, Faculty of Biology University of Murcia, 30100-Murcia, Spain. 4 IRD, UMR 226 ISE-M, Université Montpellier II, 34095 Montpellier Cedex 5, France. 5 Ifremer, Department of Functional Physiology of Marine Organisms, Fish Nutrition Unit, BP. 70, 29280 Plouzané, France. *Corresponding author: enric.gisbert@irta.cat
impaired larval quality, infl uencing the overall performance of the rearing production, whose fi nal objective is the obtention of enough fry of good quantity and quality for on-growing purposes.
