Enrichment of Artemia nauplii with the probiotic yeast Saccharomyces boulardii and its resistance against a pathogenic Vibrio

Enrichment of Artemia nauplii with a known probiotic yeast Saccharomyces boulardii (SB) and its role in enhancing resistance against the pathogen Vibrio harveyi was investigated. SB was cultured, then fed to instar II Artemia nauplii in three dierent treatments; 102 (T1), 103 (T2) and 104 (T3) colony forming units (CFU) per ml in triplicate. The algae Nanochloropsis sp. was used as control diet. Survival and total count of CFU nauplii�1 was observed on dierent media (Sabouraud, for enumerating yeasts, thiosulphate citrate bile salts sucrose, for enumerating Vibrio and seawater agar, for enumerating total aerobic flora) for each replication. Enhanced survival of nauplii was observed in treatments as compared to control. Results indicated that enrichment of SB in Artemia nauplii proceeded in a linear fashion, and up to 3500 CFU of SB could be detected in one nauplii at 104 CFU ml�1 treatment. No conclusive trend could be observed in the count of Vibrio and total aerobic flora due to treatment. Enriched nauplii were then challenged with the pathogen V. harveyi for 24 and 48 h at a concentration of 6.1 � 106 CFU ml�1. The survival counts at 48 h showed that the resistance of the nauplii was significantly (P < 0.01) improved in those fed with 104 CFU ml�1 SB (90% survival rate after 48 h of challenge versus less than 40% for the infected control group without SB and treatments T1 and T2). This study shows that SB, which has been used for the first time in an aquatic live feed organism, has a profound beneficial eect on the nauplii by increasing its resistance to a pathogenic Vibrio infection