CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Ecological aquaculture promotes the development of sustainable farming systems,focusing on a wide range of ecosystem elements. The ecological aquaculture of thezooplanktivorous pejerrey (Odontesthes bonariensis) in floating cages in Pampean shallowlakes (Argentina) needs to be carried out considering the hydrological and chemicalvariations as modulators of plankton community and consequently of the pejerreyyield. To assess its performance in lakes with contrasting hydrological regimes, anexperiment was carried out in two water bodies: La Salada de Monasterio Lake (Mon),an endorheic environment, and San Lorenzo Lake (Lor), connected to several lakes andthe Salado River. During the experiment, regional rainfall generated high hydrologicalvariability in Lor Lake changing its status of unconnected lake to a run-of-the-riverlake. High standard deviation in Chlorophyll-a values in Lor indicated the significanteffects of hydrological instability on the plankton community. Microcrustaceansabundance and biomass were higher in Mon, and almost disappeared in Lor whenit turns into run-of-the-river.The final fish growth and survival were significantly higher in Mon, endorsing the importance of zooplankton of high nutritional quality and hydrological, physical?chemicaland biological stability. The results indicate thatproductive and stable environments with a sustained offer of natural food are betterfor the zooplanktivorous fish production. Connectivity with other water bodies andhydrological dependence on rainfall regimes have defining effects on phytoplankton,zooplankton and fish production, thus emerging as key factors to be considered forachieving better results in the ecological aquaculture implementation.

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