Comparative study on growth performance and physiological responses of sensitive and tolerant families of Penaeus vannamei under long-term high alkalinity stress

High alkalinity severely limits Penaeus vannamei aquaculture. To elucidate the long-term physiological mechanisms underlying tolerance, this study used sensitive and tolerant families of P. vannamei, setting up a normal control group (alkalinity 0.5 mmol/L, pH 8.2) and a high alkaline stress group (alkalinity 10.0 mmol/L, pH 8.9) for an 80-day culture experiment.The survival rate and growth index of the two lines were measured at 30 d and 80 d, respectively. Hemolymph samples were collected only at the end of the 80 d experiment, and the differences in osmotic pressure regulation ability (OC), blood ammonia concentration (BAC) and blood pH value were compared and analyzed. As for growth performance, the SGR of tolerant families was significantly higher than that of sensitive families at two time points. On the physiological level, the analysis of two-factor variance showed that the main environmental effect had a very significant impact on BAC at 80 d (P<0.01). OC is significantly influenced by the main effects of family (P=0.038) and E(P=0.016), but the interaction between them is not significant (P=0.383).. Correlation analysis showed that SGR was positively correlated with OC (r=0.64, P<0.05), while OC was negatively correlated with BAC (r = 0.77, P<0.01). Linear regression further showed that the SGR of P. vannamei increased significantly with the increase of OC (R²=0.41, P=0.025), while OC decreased significantly with the accumulation of BAC (R²=0.59, P=0.003 5). The study shows that the growth advantage of tolerant families under long-term high alkaline stress stems from their remarkable osmotic pressure homeostasis maintenance ability and efficient BAC regulation ability. Osmotic pressure regulation, homeostasis, and BAC can be used as effective candidate physiological markers for alkali-tolerant breeding of P. vannamei, and this study provides a physiological basis and breeding reference for efficient breeding of saline-alkaline shrimp.