Effects of acoustic environment in rearing tank on Japanese eel reproduction

Research Project

Project/Area Number	25660158
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Research Field	Aquatic bioproduction science
Research Institution	University of Miyazaki
Principal Investigator	Kagawa Hirohiko 宮崎大学, 農学部, 教授 (60169381)
Project Period (FY)	2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2016)
Budget Amount *help	¥4,030,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥930,000) Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,170,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥270,000) Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000) Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Keywords	水中音響環境 / ニホンウナギ / 性成熟 / 生殖内分泌 / 産卵 / 種苗生産 / ウナギ / ストレス
Outline of Final Research Achievements	In order to develop techniques to induce sexual maturation of Japanese eel by environmental control, we investigated the influence of acoustic environments in rearing tank on the sexual maturation of eels. We found that acoustic environment in rearing tank have more noise than those in the eel natural habitat. In the next step, we prepared eel rearing tanks which can keep quiet acoustic environment. Using the tank, we found that serum estradiol and testosterone levels were higher both in quiet acoustic tanks and in tanks running Morzart’s healing sound than those in noisy tanks. These results suggest that acoustic environments in rearing tanks should be considered to initiate sexual maturation of Japanese eel.