Breeding for resilient growth in tilapia

Summary

The dynamic environments and wide diversity of aquaculture production systems along with a trend towards more intensive production systems introduces various biotic and abiotic stressors to fish. In this thesis, Farid used longitudinal records of fish weight to quantify growth consistency, as a measure of the fish’s ability to handle stressors. Growth consistency, or resilient growth, is moderately heritable in GIFT and Sukamandi tilapia populations, in brackish water and freshwater, and with or without aeration. Improving resilient growth leads to economic benefits from more predictable growth in fish. Additionally, resilient growth is identified as an indicator trait for GxE studies, measuring environmental sensitivity and identifying environments that are more demanding for fish. Breeding for more resilient growth could offer cumulative and sustainable economic, environmental, and social benefits.