Study points to phospholipid sweet spot for salmon fry diets
Version 1
A new study in Animals reports that adding phospholipids from either soybean lecithin or krill oil to Atlantic salmon fry diets improved growth, antioxidant capacity, and lipid metabolism over a 56-day feeding trial. The researchers tested a basal diet containing 1.76% phospholipids, then added 1.5%, 3.0%, or 4.5% more phospholipids from soybean lecithin or krill oil phospholipids. They found that 3.0% to 4.5% soybean lecithin and 1.5% to 4.5% krill oil phospholipids significantly improved growth, while feed conversion improved in the 3.0% to 4.5% soybean lecithin groups and the 3.0% krill oil group. At the same inclusion levels, growth outcomes did not significantly differ between the two phospholipid sources. The supplemented diets also reduced whole-body lipid deposition and improved antioxidant markers, with the authors concluding that moderate phospholipid supplementation may support healthier early-stage salmon production. (mdpi.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals and aquaculture health teams, the findings add to a longer-running body of evidence that young Atlantic salmon have a meaningful dietary phospholipid requirement during early development, likely because their intestinal lipid transport systems are still maturing. Earlier work in salmon fry has linked phospholipid supplementation with better growth and lower mortality, and reviews suggest soybean lecithin can perform similarly to marine phospholipid sources in some settings, even if marine sources sometimes show an edge in specific life stages or formulations. That makes this new paper practically relevant for feed formulation, fish welfare, and farm economics, especially as producers weigh performance, ingredient cost, and sustainability when choosing between plant-based and marine phospholipid sources. (sciencedirect.com)
What to watch: The next question is whether these fry-stage benefits hold at commercial scale, across later production stages, and under real farm stressors such as transfer, crowding, and variable raw material sourcing. (mdpi.com)