Affiliation

• ¹School of Science and Technology, The Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
• ²Department of Biology and Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Corresponding Author

Steven Jingliang XU, School of Science and Technology, The Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Tel: (852) 31202691; E-mail: sjlxu@ouhk.edu.hk

Citation

Yiu, S.K.F., et al.. The Tolerance of Rabbitfish Siganusoramin to Theichthyotoxic Alga Chattonella marina. (2017) J Marine Biol Aquacult 3(2): 1- 4.

Copy rights

© 2017 Jingliang, S. This is an Open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Keywords

Abstract

  Raphidophycean flagellates, Chattonella marina is anichthyotoxic algal species. Its blooms induced massive mortality of wild and cultivated fishes, which caused economic loss all over the world. Previous studies suggested respiratory disorder was the major reason of the fish death upon C. marina exposure and fishes with high respiratory rates might be sensitive to C. marina. In this study, rabbitfish (Siganusoramin) which has high respiratory rate was studied. In 48h exposure to C. marina, only 30% mortality was found. Besides, the respiratory rate of C. marina exposed rabbitfish was significantly higher than the control groups only after 24h. Therefore, the rabbitfish showed relatively high resistance to C. marina as compared to other studied fish species with high respiratory rate. Besides, the survival fish also had significantly lower ratio of gill damage, and anaerobic respiration was not dominant. Although it suffered respiratory disorder in exposure of C. marina, its blood glucose did not decrease to lethal level. The gill protection ability of rabbitfish might be the key to resist to toxic effect of C. marina. Further investigation on the mechanism of gill protection may help to make better management strategies in fish farming when facing the red tide of C. marina.