Recovery of haemal lordosis in Gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata L.)

Haemal lordosis is a frequent abnormality of the vertebral column. It has been recorded to develop in different finfish species, during the hatchery rearing phase. Under certain conditions, this abnormality reaches a high prevalence and severity degree, with significant effects on the external morphology of the fish. We show that haemal lordosis recovers during the on-growing of Gilthead sea bream in sea cages. At the end of the hatchery phase, 1700 sea bream juveniles were tagged electronically and examined for the presence of haemal lordosis. Subsequently, their morphology was examined periodically up to the end of the on-growing period. We found that the prevalence of fish with a lordotic external morphology decreased during the studied period by approximately 50%. Interestingly, 27% of the recovered fish presented a completely normal vertebral column. Geometric morphometric analysis showed no significant differences in the body shape between the fish with a recovered normal phenotype and the fish that were normal since the beginning of the on-growing period. Our results provide the first evidence for the recovery of lordosis during the growth of fish. A mechanism with multiple levels of remodeling of abnormal bones is suggested.