Common Octopus Aquaculture in Tenerife ( Canary Islands , Spain ) : Outlook and Challenges

Resumen

The common octopus Octopus vulgaris is a good candidate for aquaculture because it meets many of the criteria for intensive aquaculture, such as having a short life cycle and rapid growth (Iglesias et al. 2000), ready adaptation to captive conditions (Boyle and Rodhouse 2005), high feed efficiency, high reproductive rate (Mangold and Boletzky 1973) and elevated nutritional value and market price. Octopus culture is currently limited to ongrowing of sub-adult individuals captured from the wild (Prato et al. 2010), although great effort has recently been made to rear O. vulgaris paralarvae. High mortality rates and poor paralarval growth resulting from nutritional imbalances have been identified as the main bottlenecks for aquaculture of this species (Navarro and Villanueva 2000). Because of high metabolic rate, rapid growth and limited nutritional reserves, octopus paralarvae must find enough energetic substrates with essential nutrients at early life stages. At present, only limited information regarding the nutritional requirements of octopus paralarvae is available. This information is necessary to develop feeds, including different types of live prey, enriched Artemia and inert commercial diets. The aim of this article is to summarize the state-of the-art knowledge of common octopus paralarvae culture, identifying current bottlenecks and emphasising relevant research areas being developed to overcome existing problems, and to promote the high potential of common octopus commercial production at facilities of the Oceanographic Centre of the Canary Islands (COC). The COC is part of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, which has an Experimental Marine Culture Unit that has been exclusively dedicated to aquaculture research since 1980.