Factors Affecting Maximization of Fish Growth

Abstract

Studies of fish growth bioenergetics include investigations of variables such as Standard Metabolic Rate (SMR), Specific Dynamic Action (SDA), and activity. There is now an increasingly sophisticated attempt to measure these and other components of bioenergetics, such as foraging and other forms of activity, and relate growth to them in mathematical expressions. Such expressions can be very valuable in identifying the parameters that remain to be determined in the field or experimentally for a full and formal accounting of growth energetics. Energy compartmentalization studies can form the factual basis in a superior management of cultured fish populations for growth (and production) maximization and can offer a necessary framework for the genetical improvement of growth which has been lacking hitherto.Knowledge of fat and protein dynamics can permit optimization of production of useful materials by fish if that is considered an advantage over the usual attempts to maximize growth and production of fish as caloric units.Cell biology, determination of optimal vitamin levels, and the mechanisms of hormonal control of growth may offer additional research problems leading to growth maximization.The structure of fish growth curves should be studied because they can reveal differences about the assimilative capabilities of fish not only between species, but also between life stages or in different environments.The study of growth is a multidisciplinary program, demanding inputs of information from a number of fields, which bears the promise of a perhaps dramatic improvement in production of fish from aquaculture.