Prebiotic Applications in Shellfish - Aquaculture Nutrition: Gut Health, Probiotics and Prebiotics - page 414

may also stimulate the production of endogenous enzymes by the host, further enhancing
enzyme activity (Zhou et al. 2009). Few studies have addressed this topic in shellfish; how-
ever, the dietary application of MOS to freshwater crayfish has been reported to improve
amylase activity in the mid gut and protease activity in the hepatopancreas which subsequently
improved digestion capabilities and thus improved growth of crayfish (Sang et al. 2011b).
15.4 CONCLUSION
This chapter highlights the great potential shown for the use of dietary prebiotics in shellfish
culture. However, compared to the reported applications of prebiotics in finfish species there
is a scarcity of accessible studies at present. This discrepancy in the level of research between
shellfish and finfish is almost certainly related to the size of the aquaculture industry of the
associated species. Regardless of this, the benefits of using dietary prebiotics in shellfish cul-
ture are evident with reported improvements in growth, feed conversion, survival, immune
status, GI morphology, GI microbiota and GI enzyme activity. However, it must be noted that
the success of applying dietary prebiotic supplements appears to depend on many factors and is
thus governed by specific circumstances: the prebiotic under consideration, length and dosage
of application, diet, temperature, salinity, oxygenation and reproductive status (Hauton and
Smith 2004). One such example, life stage, was highlighted by Hoseinifar et al. (2010) where
inulin was shown to elevate the survival of Indian white shrimp ( Fenneropenaeus indicus ) post
larvae but not larvae. Dose-dependent effects of prebiotics have also been highlighted in Euro-
pean lobster where an increased concentration of MOS caused negative effects on larval culture
success compared to lower doses of MOS (Daniels et al. 2006). Dose-dependent effects were
also reported in shrimp fed scFOS (Li et al. 2007), XOS (Wang et al. 2010) and MOS (Genc
et al. 2007; Zhang et al. 2012) and freshwater crayfish fed MOS (Sang et al. 2009; 2011a).
The use of prebiotics in shellfish culture warrants greater attention and particular consider-
ation should be paid to understanding the causative actions behind the prebiotic host benefits
in order to improve the overall efficacy of applications. This is particularly important due to
the ever increasing need to improve aquaculture productivity to support the growing demand
for shellfish.
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