Effects of waterless live transportation on survivability, physiological responses and flesh quality in Chinese farmed sturgeon (Acipenser schrenckii)

Abstract Waterless transport is an alternative method to realize the larger volume and higher survival rate of live aquatic products, this paper aims to investigate the effects of transport multi-stressors on the blood physiology and flesh quality, then optimize the setting of ambient parameters during waterless live transportation. Amur sturgeon, Acipenser schrenckii is selected as research objective because it is a representative fish of Chinese farmed sturgeon species. Fish were divided into three groups, Group I, Group II, and Group III. The fish in group I were cultured in the normal living environment (21 °C, with water), and Group II were transported in a lower temperature but normal living environment (4 °C, with water), but fish in Group III were transported in a waterless environment (4 °C, without water). Blood and muscle for assay were sampled at every 8 h intervals (0 h, 8 h, 16 h, 24 h and 32 h). The results indicate that temperature and oxygen are the critical ambient parameters in waterless live transportation, and significantly influence the fish survivability and blood physiology; blood glucose (GLU) and serum cortisol (COR) could be regarded as the representative indexes to assess the physiological stress level. Furthermore, the fish in waterless condition (Group III) exhibit no significant changes in flesh quality, such as total protein and crude fat after transport. These findings provide the theoretical evidence to understand the effects of multi-transport stressors on live fish and apply waterless transport in actual situation.