Production potential of the brine shrimp artemia in hypersaline lakes of the plain of the Altai territory

The brine shrimp Artemia is the most common live food used in aquaculture worldwide. In order to manage the fishery of Artemia cysts bioresource it is necessary to determine their stocks, the value of which depends on the bioproductive characteristics of Artemia cysts. The article analyzes the inter-annual dynamics of Artemia cysts abundance, adult individuals of the brine shrimp and its different age stages in different phases of water availability in comparison with their average annual indicators in the main commercial lakes of the Altai Krai: Kulundinskoye, Kuchukskoye, Bolshoye Yarovoye and Maloye Yarovoye. Three or four generations of Artemia are observed in different types of the studied lakes during the vegetation period. It was revealed that Artemia life cycle has 3.7±1.4 generations on average. The length of sexually mature individuals was calculated in Kulundinskoye with average fecundity of females ranging from 16.0–94.0 specimens; in Kuchukskoye – 34.0–45.0; in Bolshoye Yarovoye – 26.6–134.4; in Maloye Yarovoye – 25.0–30.0 specimens. In lakes Kulundinskoye and Bolshoye Yarovoye, the structure of productive characteristics of female crustacean in the composition of thickshell cysts, thin-shell eggs, and live birth is shown. The share of the latter accounts on average from 1.5 to 9.4 %. The correlation coefficient between fecundity and water temperature was calculated – r = 0.80 (p < 0.05). The peculiarity of fecundity variation series on the example of female Artemia of Lake Kulundinskoe in transgressive and regressive phases of water content is shown. The trend of Artemia cysts stocks in hypergaline lakes up to 2030 is revealed.