Availability of essential amino acids, nutrient utilisation and growth in juvenile black
tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon, following fishmeal replacement by plant protein
Lenaïg Richard
a,b
, Anne Surget
a
, Vincent Rigolet
b,c
, Sadasivam J. Kaushik
a
, Inge Geurden
a,
⁎
a
INRA, UR 1067 NuMeA (Nutrition, Metabolism and Aquaculture), F-64310 Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle, France
b
UNIMA, 11 bis, rue Balzac, 75008 Paris, France
c
AQUALMA, BP 93 Immeuble SCIM, 4 rue Galliéni, Mahajanga 401, Madagascar
abstractarticle info
Article history:
Received 4 August 2011
Received in revised form 22 September 2011
Accepted 25 September 2011
Available online 1 October 2011
Keywords:
Fishmeal
Plant protein
Amino acid
Shrimp
Digestibility
Two trials with juvenile black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) were undertaken to study the effects of repla-
cing fishmeal by different levels of plant proteins on growth performances and nutrient utilisation of shrimp
in semi-intensive conditions (Expt. 1) and on the availability of dietary nitrogen (N) and amino acids (Expt.
2). Five isoproteic diets (on crude protein basis) were formulated to contain 34, 24, 16, 8, or 0% fishmeal, with
fishmeal being replaced by a mixture of plant protein (corn gluten meal, wheat gluten, and rapeseed meal). In
Expt. 1, the shrimp (initial body weight, IBW 1.5± 0.1 g) were reared in earthen ponds for 144 days and fed
one of the experimental diets. Apparent digestibility of nutrients and AA were assessed in Expt. 2, using 150 L
tanks and shrimp of 12.8 ±0.4 g IBW. After 144 days in grow-out ponds, shrimp fed the diet with 24% of fish-
meal had similar growth as those fed the control diet containing 34% fishmeal (0% replacement). When 50%
or more of the fishmeal were replaced, weight gain as well as N and energy gains significantly decreased. Di-
gestibility of dry matter, protein and energy was also significantly lower in all fishmeal-replaced diets. In par-
ticular, leucine digestibility decreased by 26% at 100% replacement, which was significantly correlated to an
increased incorporation of corn gluten meal. Our data confirm the need to improve our knowledge on AA
availability and raw material quality in order to improve fishmeal replacement in P. monodon diets.
© 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Over the past 10 years, farmed shrimp production has expanded
from 1.2 million to 4.7 million tonnes, increasing the demand for for-
mulated shrimp feed (Tacon and Metian, 2008). To meet the high di-
etary protein requirement of shrimp, commercial shrimp feeds are
often rich (25–50% of the diet) in fishmeal (FM), the preferred protein
source due to its well-balanced essential amino acid (EAA) profile.
As a consequence of the reduction of forage fisheries, production of
FM is levelling off (Naylor et al., 2009). Due to their wide availability,
plant proteins from oil seed meals such as soybean meal, sunflower
meal, or pulses such as lupin or pea have been investigated as poten-
tial fishmeal replacers in feed for both whiteleg shrimp (Litopenaeus
vannamei) and black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon), reaching
high levels of FM substitutions (Dayal et al., 2011; Forster et al.,
2002; Paripatananont et al., 2001; Smith et al., 2007a; Sudaryono
et al., 1999) or even total FM substitution in L. vannamei (Amaya
et al., 2007a; Sookying and Davis, 2011). However, most of the re-
search has been conducted under controlled laboratory conditions
rather than under field conditions (Amaya et al., 2007b; Sookying
and Davis, 2011), which makes it difficult to transfer to shrimp farm-
ing industry.
In order to reach an adequate dietary EAA profile, a mixture of sev-
eral plant proteins rather than a sole plant protein source is often
used, as proposed for fish (Fournier et al., 2004; Gomes et al., 1995;
Kaushik et al., 2004; Regost et al., 1999). Our previous work with P.
monodon (Richard et al., 2010a) further indicated that both the pro-
tein level and EAA profile should be considered together, as protein
accretion in P. monodon was not reduced by feeding a high level
(50% of diet) of an ‘imbalanced’ protein compared to an adequate
level (30% of diet) of ‘balanced’ protein, suggesting that EAA require-
ments should be expressed as a proportion of the diet or as a given in-
take level (per unit body weight) rather than as a percentage of
dietary protein. It also implies that poor quality protein sources can
be included at higher than required protein levels in order to fulfil
EAA requirements (Richard et al., 2010a), leading however to in-
creased nitrogen excretion (Richard et al., 2010b). Besides, informa-
tion on the availability of the EAA from the feed is also needed in
order to avoid an EAA deficiency and thus a suboptimal protein utili-
sation by the shrimp. Earlier studies in shrimp reported big differ-
ences in nutrient digestibility of plant proteins (Akiyama et al.,
Aquaculture 322-323 (2011) 109–116
Abbreviations: ADC, apparent digestibility coefficient; EAA, essential amino acids;
CGM, corn gluten meal; FM, fishmeal; RSM, rapeseed meal; SBM, soybean meal; WG,
wheat gluten; WW, whole wheat.
⁎ Corresponding author at: INRA, UR 1067 NuMeA (Nutrition, Aquaculture and Genomics),
F-64310 Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle, France. Tel.: +33 559515961; fax: +33 559545152.
E-mail address: geurden@st-pee.inra.fr (I. Geurden).
0044-8486/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.aquaculture.2011.09.032
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Aquaculture
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aqua-online