Abstract
Fishmeal is an indispensable ingredient for most aquatic animals. However, the finite supply and escalating price of fishmeal seriously limit its use in aquaculture. Thus the development of new, sustainable protein ingredients has been a research focus. Microalgae are potential fishmeal alternatives owing to their high protein content and balanced amino acid profile. Studies suggest that suitable replacement of fishmeal with microalgae is beneficial for fish growth performance, but excessive replacement would induce poor growth and feed utilization. Therefore, this paper aims to review research on the maximum substitutional level of fishmeal by microalgae and propose the main issues and possible solutions for fishmeal replacement by microalgae. The maximum replacement level is affected by microalgal species, fish feeding habits, quality of fishmeal and microalgal meals, and supplemental levels of fishmeal in the control group. Microalgae could generally replace 100%, 95%, 95%, 64.1%, 25.6%, and 18.6% fishmeal protein in diets of carp, shrimp, catfish, tilapia, marine fish, and salmon and trout, respectively. The main issues with fishmeal replacement using microalgae include low production and high production cost, poor digestibility, and anti-nutritional factors. Possible solutions to these problems are recommended in this paper. Overall, microalgae are promising fishmeal alternatives in aquaculture.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Great thanks were given to Qiang Hu for his instructive suggestions for the review.
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This work was supported by the Doctoral Scientific Research Foundation of Henan University of Science and Technology (13480087; 13480088), Henan Provincial Science and Technology Research Project (222102320144), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, no. 32202952).
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Gao, S., Chen, W., Cao, S. et al. Microalgae as fishmeal alternatives in aquaculture: current status, existing problems, and possible solutions. Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 16113–16130 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-32143-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-32143-1