The impact of diets containing Hermetia illucens meal on the growth, intestinal health, and microbiota of gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata)

Abstract The present study investigated the effect of replacing fishmeal (FM) with insect meal of Hermetia illucens (HI) in the diet of Sparus aurata farmed inshore on growth, gut health, and microbiota composition. Two isolipidic (18% as fed) and isoproteic (42% as fed) diets were tested at the farm scale: a control diet without HI meal and an experimental diet with 11% HI meal replacing FM. At the end of the 25-week feeding trial, final body weight, specific growth rate, feed conversion rate, and hepatosomatic index were not affected by the diet. Gross morphology of the gastrointestinal tract and the liver was unchanged and showed no obvious signs of inflammation. High-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons (MiSeq platform, Illumina) used to characterize the gut microbial community profile showed that Proteobacteria, Fusobacteria, and Firmicutes were the dominant phyla of the gut microbiota of gilthead seabream, regardless of diet. Dietary inclusion of HI meal altered the gut microbiota by significantly decreasing the abundance of Cetobacterium and increasing the relative abundance of the Oceanobacillus and Paenibacillus genera. Our results clearly indicate that the inclusion of HI meal as an alternative animal protein source positively affects the gut microbiota of seabream by increasing the abundance of beneficial genera, thereby improving gut health and maintaining growth performance of S. aurata from coastal farms.