| Among the environmental variables influencing the performance of fish larvae, the quantity and quality of food belong to the more important ones. Alterations of nutritional condition affect, apart from changing growth and survival, a number of structural and molecular parameters of the larvae. Particularly the absence of food has pronounced effects on histological features of, <i>e.g.</i> the liver and the intestine, on activities of digestive proteolytic enzymes, as well as on RNA/DNA ratios. The starvation-related changes are similar for the larvae of totally different fish species, <i>e.g. Clarias gariepinus</i>, a tropical freshwater species, the whitefish <i>Coregonus lavaretus</i>, from temperate freshwaters, or... |
