Reproductive Performance of Wild Brooders of Indian White Shrimp, Penaeus indicus: Potential and Challenges for Selective Breeding Program

Indian white shrimp, Penaeus indicus, has been identified as a national priority species for domestication and genetic improvement. Although breeding and farming of this species has been studied before the inception of commercial shrimp farming in India, reproductive and hatchery performance of this species on a mass scale has not been addressed so far. To evaluate the reproductive performance of wild P. indicus brooders, a total of 2164 brooders from the broodstock fishery along the Indian east coast were used. The experiment was carried out in two phases; in trial 1, brooders from Odisha, Kanyakumari, as well as Chennai, were used, whereas, in trial 2 brooders from Chennai coast alone was used. Only 16-32% of eyestalk ablated animals spawned successfully, whereas remaining stock was found to be nonresponsive to eyestalk ablation. Ablated females had a latency period of 7-10 days with 2-3 times spawning per brooder. The average fecundity of wild spawner was 220000 +/- 56000. Eggs per gram body weight for wild and ablated spawners were 8126 +/- 3502 and 1481 +/- 863, respectively. The egg hatchability was 80% for wild spawners whereas ablated spawners recorded 50-70% hatchability. During larval rearing cycle a lack of synchronized moulting was noticed during protozoea to mysis conversion (91.5% protozoea and 8.5% mysis 1), and mysis 3 to postlarvae (PL) conversion (30-50% of mysis 3 in PL1/PL2 stage). The study provides a deeper understanding of the reproductive performance of wild broodstock of native P. indicus, which can be used as a reference database for future breeding programs.