Revealing diets of wild-caught ornate spiny lobster, Panulirus ornatus, at puerulus, post-puerulus and juvenile stages using environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding

Diets are a critical factor in the artificial production of lobster larvae, yet knowledge of the diet requirements of spiny lobster especially at its early life stages is rarely investigated. Thus, the present study aimed at finding potential diets of spiny lobster larva by analyzing the stomach content of wild-caught ornate spiny lobster, Panulirus ornatus, at three different life stages: puerulus, post-puerulus, and juvenile using eDNA metabarcoding. The results showed that 10 plankton species were identified at the puerulus stage, and the top five were Oithona sp. (36.30% of the relative quantity of eDNA), Macropthalmus setous (19.18%), Audacallichirus mirim (13.01%), Oithona simplex (5.48%), and Pseudodiaptomus euryhalinus (4.11%). Furthermore, 17 species were identified from the post-puerulus stage, and the five most dominant species were Audacallichirus mirim (28.60%), Oithona sp. (19.36%), Pichia sp. (5.96%), Helice tientsinensis (5.86%), and Oithona simplex (5.36%). At the juvenile stage, 34 diet species were identified, of which the top five most dominant species were Oithona sp. (80.88%), followed by Canthocalanus pauper (5.66%), Acartia bispinosa (4.02%), Longipedia koreana (2.30%), and Oithona davisae (1.92%). In addition, 56 plankton species were identified from the natural habitat including Sicyonia laevigata (33.73%), Oithona simplex (23.70%), Oithona sp. (17.70%), and Acartia tonsa (11.89%). Of the identified species, five were considered highly potential for developing artificially producing lobster seeds which were Oithona sp., Oithona simplex, Acartia bispinosa, Acartia tonsa and Pseudodiaptomus euryhalinus.