Aquaculture Research, 2004, 35, 213^214
BOOK REVIEW
Live Feeds in Marine Aquaculture
Dr Josianne G St
ttrup & Dr Lesley A McEvoy (eds), Blackwell Science, Oxford, 2003, 318 pp.
In the development of marine aquaculture, live feed
has usually been a major bottleneck in the larvicul-
ture of di¡erent ¢sh and shell¢sh species, in particu-
lar when intensive rearing methods are applied. In
contrast to salmonids, live feed is still essential in ju-
venile production of most marine species, although
considerable progress has been achieved the last
years in the development of formulated start-feed
diets. To support the ongoing commercial marine ¢sh
farming industry, this has urged an extensive and
continuous research on live feed culture, including
intensi¢cation of production methods and improve-
ment of enrichment media and procedures. Despite
these e¡orts, use of natural plankton like copepods
still seems superior when it comes to juvenile ¢sh
quality in terms of absence of deformities and malfor-
mations. With this introduction as background, the
recently issued book Live feeds in marine aquaculture
is an attempt to sum up the state of the art of live feed
culture and use.
The content is grouped into seven main chapters,
con¢ning topics like: (1) status of marine aquaculture
in relation to live prey, (2) production and nutritional
value of rotifers, (3) biology and nutritional value of
Artemia from tank production, (4) Artemia produc-
tion from natural lakes, including harvesting and
processing, (5) production and nutritional value of
copepods, (6) culture and nutritional value of micro-
algae in aquaculture and ¢nally (7) the use of micro-
algae in aquaculture. The chapters are usefully
illustrated with graphs and pictures of generally
good quality, but in two occasions the use of insu⁄-
cient resolution of the bitmap format has made it dif-
¢cult to read text in the ¢gures. Each main chapter
has a short introduction that outlines the subjects fol-
lowing. The chapters are sectioned into sub-chapters
with further division by sub-titles. This makes it easy
to use the book as a ‘lexicon’ when a certain issue is
r 2004 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
explored. The reader can easily ¢nd any kind of infor-
mation just by starting at the index. For those who
want to extract more information, an extensive refer-
ence list found at the end of each main chapter may
be very helpful.
The ¢rst chapter describes the tremendous devel-
opment in world aquaculture enabled by the use of
live feeds and give a good and short presentation
of marine aquaculture history, present status and
future. In particular the considerations about the
future appeal for re£ections: ‘How do we make aqua-
culture sustainable?’ and ‘What will we feed aqua-
culture organisms in the future?’ are important
questions discussed here.
The chapters covering rotifers and Artemia are all
very informative and present an up-to-date status of
the biology, culture methods, nutritional quality and
preservation. The Artemia chapters are well illu-
strated in contrast to the rotifer chapter, which could
bene¢t from inclusion of more ¢gures schematically
describing the set-ups of the di¡erent production sys-
tems. Also comparisons between stagnant and £ow-
through culture techniques for rotifers could have
been more elaborated. However, we ¢nd the appendix
on procedures for assessment of rotifer cultures very
useful. Development of rotifer culture techniques is
advancing rapidly at the moment, particularly in the
¢eld of high-density continuous £ow-through cul-
tures based on recirculation. Therefore, in a short fu-
ture the book may not be fully updated on this topic.
Regarding use of Artemia as larval feed, this chapter
o¡ers a deep insight into most aspects of live feed pro-
duction. The presentation of Artemia cyst production
in ponds or lakes is intriguing, and provides basic
knowledge beyond the use of Artemia only for juve-
nile production of aquatic organisms. The topic on
variation in cyst availability and future perspectives
should have been given more attention as this may
213
Book Review
clarify current trends in research and development of
larval rearing and nutrition.
The copepod chapter is a comprehensive descrip-
tion of the basic biology of harpacticoid, cyclopoid
and calanoid copepods. It includes issues like mor-
phology, reproduction, diapause eggs, development,
growth and feeding. However, actual measures or es-
timation of biomass and energy content from simple
length^weight relationships and caloric values are
missing. Such data would o¡er an easy tool for mon-
itoring biomass of prey consumed by ¢sh larvae and
could have been pro¢tably presented in a table.
Further, the chapter covers in an excellent way the
production methods, and gives the reader a thorough
presentation of biochemical composition, nutritional
value for ¢sh larvae and applications in aquaculture.
As indicated by the author, copepods as live feed in
aquaculture is rapidly gaining impetus and, conse-
quently, recent literature not cited in the book (e.g.
on biochemical composition) already exists.
The authors of the microalgae chapters should be
honoured for their success in presenting practical
knowledge in a scienti¢c context. The rationale for
this is to include hatchery personnel in the target
214 r 2004 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Aquaculture Research, 35, 213^214
Aquaculture Research, 2004, 35, 213^214
group, as well as people with an academic back-
ground. In the presentation of algal biology, emphasis
is given to factors a¡ecting growth dynamics. Bio-
chemical composition of di¡erent algal classes or
species is very nicely illustrated, and production
methods cover sections on improvement of techni-
ques for increasing production yields, inclusive
heterotrophic production. Use of microalgae in aqua-
culture is the most impressive chapter of the book,
presenting exceptionally well how microalgae are
utilized in shell¢sh culture, shrimp culture, live prey
production and larval ¢sh culture (green water).
The book is recommended for everyone involved in
the production or use of live feed in aquaculture. The
book is available from the Blackwell Publishing
online bookstore at www.blackwellpublishing.com.
Terje van der Meeren & Torstein Harboe
Institute of Marine Research
Austevoll Aquaculture Research Station
N-5392 Storeb

Norway
E-mail: Terje.van.der.Meeren@imr.no