Brood Stock Selection Characteristics and Socio Economy Evaluation of Macrobrachium rosenbergii in Malaysia

• Main Author: Faznur Fateh, Firdaus@Nicholas
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) 2018
• Subjects: SH Aquaculture. Fisheries. Angling
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/26834/1/Faznur%20ft.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/26834/

Macrobrachium rosenbergii is known as giant freshwater prawns that is indigenous to the Indo West Pacific region. In Malaysia, the population of M. rosenbergii in the wild habitat has been gradually declining and aquaculture production for the species is still insufficient to full fill the demand. Thus, the study aim to determine the distribution M. rosenbergii in Malaysia and to evaluate the potential wild brood stock from natural population for aquaculture, to determine selected in-situ physicochemical water parameters in selected rivers and to record and access the trend of M. rosenbergii production (tonnes and RM values) from public water bodies and aquaculture development. Samplings were conducted from October 2013 until October 2015 throughout Peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak. Three replicate of selected water parameters including dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, conductivity and turbidity were recorded in nine selected rivers. Samples were obtained with various fishing methods including cast net, fishing rod, three layer gill net and traditional fishing methods including belat, selambau and bubu. Meanwhile, the secondary data from Annual Fisheries Statistics, Department Fisheries Malaysia from year 1966 to 2014 was used to evaluate history and production of M. rosenbergii in Malaysia. A total of 1042 individuals M. rosenbergii with 244 individuals’ of berried female, 442 individuals’ non-berried females and 365 individuals’ male were collected form the study area. Based on data analyses it recommended that the wild prawn from Muda River (Peninsular Malaysia) and Mupong River (Sarawak) has potential as future brood stock for aquaculture development, due to the outstanding brood stock characteristics in terms of total length, body weight, ovary weight, fecundity, egg size and condition factors. The selected physicochemical water parameters show that there were significant differences (p<0.05) for all locations and results shows that the parameters taken were in the range that M. rosenbergii could survive. Moreover, the trend production of M. rosenbergii from public water bodies and aquaculture has shown states of Perak (21.47%) and Pahang (30.03%) as potential producer of the species. Nevertheless, the efforts of government hatcheries for fries stocking activities in public water bodies as well as to culturist are shown to be significant (df = 8, t = -2.499, p<0.05) to enhance the M. rosenbergii production. It is suggesting the aquaculture industries of M.rosenbergii needs to be diversified into other public water bodies including ex-mining lake, dam and other natural habitats in order to strengthen the industries for future demand.