Prebiotics in Finfish: An Update - Aquaculture Nutrition: Gut Health, Probiotics and Prebiotics - page 361

galactooligosaccharides (GOS), xylooligosaccharides (XOS), arabinoxylooligosaccharides
(AXOS), isomaltooligosaccharides (IMO) and various commercial products containing
multiple prebiotic combinations. Although the above mentioned plant-derived additives and
fibres are not naturally present in fish diets, especially not carnivorous fish, the potential
of prebiotics may have interesting applications in aquaculture in order to improve growth
performance, survival, feed conversion, digestibility, gastrointestinal (GI) enzyme activities,
immune functions and the presence of beneficial gut bacteria as well as the suppression of
potentially pathogenic bacteria. In addition, several papers have investigated the effect of
prebiotics on GI morphology (Pryor et al. 2003; Genç et al . 2006; 2007; Yilmaz et al . 2007;
Barbu et al . 2008; Dimitroglou et al . 2009; 2010a; 2010b; Ringø et al . 2010; Sweetman et al .
2010; Dimitroglou et al . 2011a; 2011b; 2011c).
The numbers of scientific publications dealing with prebiotics in finfish has increased
since the reviews of Burr et al . (2005), Gatlin III et al . (2006), Denev et al . (2009), Yousefian
and Amiri (2009), Ganguly and Mukhopadhayay (2010), Merrifield et al . (2010), Ringø et al .
(2010), Sweetman et al . (2010) and Dimitroglou et al . (2011a) were published. Readers with
a special interest in prebiotic studies published prior to 2010 are referred to these reviews and
the recent review of Torrecillas et al . (2014). The aim of the present review is to summarize
the effects of prebiotics recently published, and data from previous investigations not cited
in the aforementioned reviews, on the following important fish: salmonids (Salmonidae),
cyprinids (Cyprinidae), sturgeons (Acipenseridae), catfishes (Siluriformes), European sea
bass ( Dicentrarchus labrax ), gilthead sea bream ( Sparus aurata ), white sea bream ( Diplodus
sargus ), hybrid striped bass ( Morone chrysops × Morone saxatilis ), Nile tilapia ( Oreochromis
niloticus ), red drum ( Sciaenops ocellatus ), Senegalese sole ( Solea senegalensis ), turbot
( Scophthalmus maximus L., Psetta maxima L.), sorubims ( Pseudoplatystoma sp.) and
Poeciliidae. Readers with a special interest in prebiotics in crustaceans are referred to
Chapter 15 .
The results cited in the present review include work on prebiotics in finfish published in
peer-reviewed scientific journals, peer-reviewed open access scientific journals, and books, as
well as minimally circulated investigations available as short communications, and abstracts
presented in topics from international conferences. The latter is done in order to indicate that
there are numerous interesting investigations ongoing albeit not yet fully published in scientific
journals. The information presented is organized into fish families according to the current
recognized taxonomical structure (FishBase 2013).
14.2 SALMONIDAE
Salmonids such as Atlantic salmon ( Salmo salar L.) and rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss
W.) are amongst the most well documented fish species in respect to prebiotic applications.
Indeed, MOS, GOS, FOS, inulin, and commercial products containing multiple prebiotic
combinations have been investigated in studies on Atlantic salmon, brook trout ( Salvelinus
fontinalis ), rainbow trout and Arctic charr ( Salvelinus alpinus ) (Table 14.1). Readers with
an interest in prebiotic applications in salmonids are referred to the review of Merrifield
et al . (2010) and Ringø et al. (2010). Beyond these reviews, some further information is also
available.