THE INFLUENCE OF THE USE OF PROBIOTICS ON THE PERFORMANCE AND HEALTH OF NATIVE FISHES: A NARRATIVE REVIEW

Abstract

The use of functional foods is increasing in aquaculture, with diets formulated not only to satisfy nutritional needs, but also to prevent or reduce risks that may harm the animal's  health. Among them, probiotics stand out, which function as a live microbial food supplement, benefiting the intestinal microbiota, thus improving the health of the animal. Thus, the objective of this work was to review the state of the art of research that evaluated the influence of the use of probiotics on the performance and health of native fish, identifying the main probiotics evaluated well with the fish species and the parameters evaluated in the researches. The research is a narrative review of the literature, where the searches took place in the main databases (Scielo and Scopus), in addition to the Google Scholar tool,  available digitally, in full format. The results showed that the use of probiotics to improve the productive performance and health of native fish has been researched in recent years.  The probiotics used in the studies were Bacillus subtilis; Bacillus spp; Saccharomyces cerevisiae; Lactococcus lactis subsp. Lactis and Enterococcus faecium. Regarding the native fish species, matrinxã (Brycon amazonicus) was used; tambaqui (Colossoma  macropomum) and pirarucu (Arapaima gigas), all species of Amazonian origin that have  potential for production in captivity. The parameters evaluated in the studies were zootechnical performance, histomorphometric characteristics of the intestinal mucosa, fish  body chemical composition, water quality and cortisol analysis, intestinal microbiota  modulation, morphology and immunological status. Thus, further work in this context must be conducted with native fish species and with new probiotics with the potential to improve health and production.