Aquaculture continues to grow more rapidly than all other animal food-producing sectors. The gap between seafood supply and market demand suggests a great potential for aquaculture development to meet the needs of seafood consumers. Larval fish rearing is a bottleneck to supply sufficient quantity and high quality of fingerlings for grow-out production. This book aims to provide comprehensive references on larval fish aquaculture. Specifically, it attempts to update the recent development in larval fish feed and feeding, environmental manipulation and hatchery management and to suggest future research needs for improvement of production efficiency in larval fish culture. Currently no book of this kind is available to cover major issues in larval fish aquaculture from an environmental, biological and managerial perspective. This book starts from environmental factors including temperature, salinity and light, and then extends to the major biological and managerial issues in larval fish rearing including live feed production, feeding and digestion, gas bladder development, metamorphosis, cannibalism control and weaning strategies. This book will become a useful reference text for researchers and hatchery managers advancing knowledge in larval fish rearing and a supplementary textbook for advanced courses in larval fish biology and aquaculture.

Nutrition is particularly important in the healthy development of fish during their early-life stages. Understanding the unique nutritional needs of larval fish can improve the efficiency and quality of fish reared in a culture setting. Larval Fish Nutrition comprehensively explores the nutritional requirements, developmental physiology, and feeding and weaning strategies that will allow aquaculture researchers and professionals to develop and implement improved culture practices. Larval Fish Nutrition is logically divided into three sections. The first section looks at the role of specific nutrient requirements in the healthy digestive development of fish. The second section looks at the impacts if nutritional physiology on fish through several early-life stages. The final section looks at feeding behaviors and the benefits and drawbacks to both live feed and microparticulate diets in developing fish. Written by a team of leading global researchers, Larval Fish Nutrition will be an indispensible resource for aquaculture researchers, professionals, and advanced students. Key Features: Reviews the latest research on larval fish nutritional requirements, developmental physiology, and feeding and weaning strategies Extensively covers nutritional needs of various early-life stages in fish development Weighs the benefits and drawbacks to both live feeds and microparticulate diets Written by a global team of experts in fish nutrition and physiology

This book is intended as a resource for students and researchers interested in developmental biology and physiology and specifically addresses the larval stages of fish. Fish larvae (and fish embryos) are not small juveniles or adults. Rather they are transitionary organisms that bridge the critical gap between the singlecelled egg and sexually immature juvenile. Fish larvae represent the stage of the life cycle that is used for differentiation, feeding and distribution. The book aims at providing a single-volume treatise that explains how fish larvae develop and differentiate, how they regulate salt, water and acid-base balance, how they transport and exchange gases, acquire and utilise energy, how they sense their environment, and move in their aquatic medium, how they control and defend themselves, and finally how they grow up.

This book deals with the fundamentals of key physiological mechanisms involved in the development and growth of fish larvae. Chapters included show how the environmental and nutritional conditions are affecting the developmental process from its molecular basis and how these same conditions also influence the final characteristics of late larvae and fry. This volume provides recent findings on the importance of environmental rhythms, some specific nutrients and the adequate microbial environment in the developmental processes including recent results of current research projects.

The second volume in the Fauna Malesiana book series gives an extensive overview of the larval development of 124 families of fishes, many of them of importance for both fishery and from ecological perspectives. The families that are described originate from the center of global marine biodiversity: the tropical Indo-Pacific Oceans, a region rich in coral reefs, as well as mangrove, estuarine, and coastal shelf habitats. The identification guide not only documents the ontogeny of these fishes but also provides the means to identify these extraordinarily diverse larvae to the level of family. The book offers a wealth of instructive and detailed figures and illustrations (219 plates, each consisting of approximately 4 figures) for enabling the identification of these families and their larval specialization.

A comprehensive and authoritative synthesis on the successful production of fish larvae Success Factors for Fish Larval Production is a vital resource that includes the most current understanding of larval biology, in the context of larval production. The text covers topics such as how external (environmental and nutritional) and internal (molecular/ developmental/ physiological/ behavioral/ genetic) factors interact in defining the phenotype and quality of fish larvae and juveniles. The expert contributors review broodstock genetics and husbandry, water quality, larval nutrition and feeding, growth physiology, health, metamorphosis, underlying molecular mechanisms, including epigenetics, for development, larval behavior and environmental conditions. Compiled by members of a European Union-funded consortium of top researchers, Success Factors for Fish Larval Production provides a wide-range of authoritative information for the aquaculture industry and academia. In addition to a wealth of information, the authors review research and commercially applicable larval quality indicators and predictors. The successful production of good-quality fish larvae is of vital importance for fish farming and stock enhancement of wild fisheries: Includes contributions from a consortium of noted researchers and experts in the field Deals with on how to improve egg quality and larval production via broodstock management and nutrition Suggests ways to control the phenotype of juveniles and table-size fish via manipulations of the conditions of larval rearing (e.g., epigenetics) Includes ideas for optimizing diet composition, formulation, and technology Integrates knowledge and practical experience in order to help advancing excellence in aquaculture Success Factors for Fish Larval Production offers fish biologists, developmental biologists, physiologists and zoologists the most current and reliable information on the topic. All those working in fish aquaculture facilities and hatcheries in particular will find great interest to their commercial operations within this book.

This manual for the identification of larval fishes of the Great Lakes basin with emphasis on the Lake Michigan drainage treats 24 families and 148 species. In addition to a key to the families, keys were constructed for selected species within some families. Species accounts include descriptions of adult ecology, reproductive biology, diagnostic characters and meristics. A description of the egg is given, as are morphometric, morphological and pigmentation characteristics of yolk-sac larvae, larvae and juveniles. Illustrations of yolk-sac larvae, larvae and juveniles have been included wherever possible and informative.

In Larvae of Temperate Australian Fishes the larval stages of 124 fish species from 57 families which occur in fresh water, estuarine and inshore marine waters of temperate Australia are described. Each family chapter includes a summary of the taxonomy and life history information for the family, a list of the main characters used to identify larvae to family level, a table of the meristic characters of the genera found in temperate Australian waters, and a list of families whose larvae may be confused with those of the family being described, and the characters which will distinguish them. For each species there is information on adult distribution, importance to fisheries, spawning, diagnostic characters of larvae, and larval morphology and pigmentation. With over 570 scientific illustrations of larval fishes throughout, and a concise and accurate text, this is an essential reference for anyone, conducting taxonomic, ecological and fisheries research.