WWW.WA S .ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • DECEMBER 2022 17 In each issue of World Aquaculture, we highlight exciting papers from the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society. In this issue we highlight the following paper “Growth effects of lysine in compounded diets for American alligator, Alligator mississippiensis” by R.C. Reigh and M.B. Williams. The article appears in the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society, volume 53, issue 5, pages 9951005. It is available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/jwas.12884 or under the Publications tab at the WAS website (www.was.org). Although alligator farming has been practiced in the southern US for more than 30 years, nutritional information is limited. Extruded feeds are available for alligator farming; however, the nutrient requirements are not well understood for these animals. This study provides baseline data on the essential amino acid lysine by feeding hatchling alligators pelleted diets containing graded levels of dietary lysine for ten months. By measuring free lysine in blood plasma along with alligator body length and weights, an estimate of Recent Research Highlight from the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society lysine concentration for practical alligator diets was determined. In this study, the authors report on lysine requirements for the American alligator Alligator mississippiensis. They determined a range of lysine levels to feed based on concentrations reported for other aquatic species, and produced practical diets containing 1.5, 2.25, 3.0 or 3.75 percent dietary lysine. These treatments were then fed to 192 hatchling alligators distributed into 24 tanks filled with 15cm of 31 C water. They were fed for 326 days and weight gain, length increases, plus blood plasma lysine levels were determine. They found that alligator growth was adequate under the test conditions when at least 2.25 percent dietary lysine was provided in the feed. These results establish a baseline for lysine requirements for the American alligator and are similar to requirements for other aquatic species. The full issue 53(5) is available at onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ toc/17497345/2022/53/5. —Kenneth Cain, Executive Editor, JWAS
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