Nutritional Value and Uses of Microalgae in Aquaculture

Microalgae play indeed a crucial nutritional role with regard to marine animals in the open sea, and consequently in aquaculture. Most marine invertebrates depend on microalgae for their whole life cycle, so commercial and experimental mollusc or fish hatcheries have included a microalga production system in parallel to their animal production itself. Microalgae are utilized as live feed for all growth stages of bivalve molluscs (e.g. oysters, scallops, clams and mussels), for larval/early juvenile stages of abalone, crustaceans and some fish species, and for zooplankton used in aquaculture food webs at large. It should be emphasized that the productivity of any hatchery is directly related to the quantity and quality of the food source used therein.