Microalgae: Different types of algae provide vital nutrients to rotifers,copepods and larvae of finfish, shellfish and shrimp

摘要

Microalgae are the foundation supporting much of the marine food chain, and they are the natural food of filter-feeding organisms. Algae are therefore essential for production of live feeds for larvicultureof finfish and shrimp. Thousands of species of microalgae are known to science. They present an enormous range of cell sizes, cell structures, biochemical constituents that determine their nutritional value and digestibility, and they also vary widely inease of culturing. Microalgae can be very difficult, even impossible to identify to species based on light microscopy alone, and different strain isolates that appear identical may exhibit very different biochemical profiles or behavior in culture. Careful consideration is therefore necessary in order to select the most suitable strains for different larviculture applications. Although many microalgae strains have been tested as feeds, only about 20 are in widespread use. What follows can be no more than a brief overview of the how these algae are most commonly used in larviculture.