Elvira Fatsini

• PhD
• Researcher at Centro de Ciências do Mar

Spermatogonia cryopreservation is a method to preserve valuable genomes from both maternal and paternal origin. The damage associated with the application of this technology on post-thaw cell quality is important to assess, including at the epigenetic level. This study aimed to assess post-thawed spermatogonia quality by evaluating alterations in p...

Background The Portuguese oyster Crassostrea angulata, a bivalve of significant economic and ecological importance, has faced a decline in both production and natural populations due to pathologies, climate change, and anthropogenic factors. To safeguard its genetic diversity and improve reproductive management, cryopreservation emerges as a valuab...

Cryopreservation of germ cells would facilitate the availability of cells at any time allowing the selection of donors and maintaining quality control for further applications such as transplantation and germline recovery. In the present study, we analyzed the efficiency of four cryopreservation protocols applied either to isolated cell suspensions...

Aquaculture offers solutions to meet the growing global demand for fish, and reports from the UN-FAO indicate that aquaculture production in Latin America (LA) has grown at rates above the world average in recent years. One of the major constraints in the diversification of LA aquaculture is the control of reproduction in several popular native fis...

Spermatogonia are increasingly used in biotechnological innovation related to transplantation in endangered or commercially cultured fish species and to cryopreserve genetic material. In some species, spermatogonia enrichment and in vitro cultivation are crucial steps to obtain enough of these germ cells. Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) is a f...

Physical complexity adds physical enrichment to rearing conditions. This enrichment promotes fish welfare and reduces detrimental characteristics that fish develop in captivity. Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) is an important species for European aquaculture, where it is reared in intensive conditions using fibreglass tanks. However, reproduct...

Spermatogonia are increasingly used in biotechnological innovation related to transplantation in endangered or commercially cultured fish species. However, in some species spermatogonia enrichment is a crucial step in the success for further transplantations or cryopreservation techniques. The aim of this study was to develop an efficient protocol...

Current European Union regulation explicitly states that farmed fish should be spared any avoidable pain, distress or suffering at the time of slaughter. It has been shown that fish suffer when they are killed in an ice slurry, the most common method of killing farmed fish in the Mediterranean. Thus, it is necessary to find a method of slaughtering...

Kisspeptin regulates puberty and reproduction onset, acting upstream of the brain-pituitary-gonad (HPG) axis. This study aimed to test a kisspeptin-based hormonal therapy on cultured Senegalese sole (G1) breeders, known to have reproductive dysfunctions. A single intramuscular injection of KISS2-10 decapeptide (250 µg/kg) was tested in females and...

Environmental enrichment is used to promote fish welfare and, in some cases, to reduce detrimental characteristics that fish develop in captive conditions. Senegalese sole is a promising species for European aquaculture, above all in the South of Europe, for its good growth rate and high market price. Behavioural studies have been reported in the l...

Environmental enrichment is used to promote fish welfare and, in some cases, to reduce detrimental characteristics that fish develop in captive conditions. Senegalese sole is a promising species for European aquaculture, above all in the South of Europe, for its good growth rate and high market price. Behavioural studies have been reported in the l...

Individual animals commonly adopt different stress coping styles that have been shown to impact reproductive success and differ between sexes (female/male) and origin (wild/hatchery). Hatchery reared Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) exhibit a behavioural reproductive dysfunction and a complete failure to spawn viable eggs. Hence, the present st...

The life cycle of Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) is not closed in captivity due to a reproductive dysfunction related to the lack of participation of cultured male breeders in the courtship. To discern a possible solution to this social reproductive dysfunction, the main objective of this study was to determine the effect of the presence of s...

Individuals differ in how they cope with stressful situations along a behavioural continuum, being proactive and reactive at the extremes of this continuum. Proactive individuals are usually bold, highly active and take risks, while reactive organisms are generally shy, exhibit low activity and avoid risky situations. Definitions of stress coping s...

The kiss system is known to regulate puberty and to be involved in the onset of reproduction, acting upstream of the Brain-Pituitary-Gonad axis in gonadotrophin releasing hormone neurons and stimulating secretion of GnRH. Kisspeptin has been proven to be a novel therapeutic for fertility disorders in humans. In fish, positive results have also obse...

In fish, proactive and reactive individual stress copying styles (SCS) have been used to resolve variation in molecular expression data. Stress coping styles have been previously described in several stages of Solea senegalensis by validating for the species the use of standard behavioural screening tests. The present study aimed to link behavioura...

Dominance is defined as the preferential access to limited resources. The present study aimed to characterise dominance in a non-aggressive flatfish species, the Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) by 1) identifying dominance categories and associated behaviours and 2) linking dominance categories (dominant and subordinate) with the abundance of s...

Experimental tank set up used for the place preference test (with sand) in pairs. A Preferred area (sand) and B white tiles forming a false bottom characterized the novel conditions. C Water inlet. D Water outlet. (TIF)

Spearman’s correlations from the three variables “Approaches, SAA and RTH” with feeding. (**) correlation was significant P < 0.05. (TIF)

Raw data of preliminary results in dyadic pairs of early Senegalese sole juveniles. (XLSX)

Classification of the different variables in groups according to Kendall’s concordance coefficient (W) for every group. (*P < 0.05) level of significance. (DOCX)

Group experimental tank set up used for feeding response and point feed delivery. A PVC tube to deliver the food. B Water Inlet. C Water Outlet. Different position areas (1–6) were shown by point lines. (TIF)

Principal component analysis of the different behaviours registered during the “feeding response test” in pairs. The three variables “Approaches, SAA and RTH” were grouped together and explained the 53% of the variance of the data. KMO (0.667), Bartlett’s test (P < 0.05) and X2 (133.523). (TIF)

Principal component analysis of the different behaviours registered during the feeding dominance test and place preference test (sand) in pairs. The three variables “Approaches, SAA and RTH” and the “TF and last” explained the 56% of the variance of the data in two different components. KMO (0.6), Bartlett’s test (P < 0.05) and X2 (116.806) (SPSS 1...

This study showed the possible linkage between Stress coping styles and gene transcription.

Chemical communication is better understood in freshwater than marine fish. The Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) is a marine flatfish wherein one of the problems in aquaculture is the poor reproductive performance of hatchery-bred males. Is chemical communication involved in the reproduction of this species? Urine, intestinal fluid and mucus sa...

The aim of this work was to characterize stress coping styles of Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) juveniles and breeders and to select an operational behavioural screening test (OBST) that can be used by the aquaculture industry to classify and select between behavioural phenotypes in order to improve production indicators. A total of 61 juveni...

The aim of this work was to characterize stress coping styles of Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) juveniles and breeders and to select an operational behavioural screening test (OBST) that can be used by the aquaculture industry to classify and select between behavioural phenotypes in order to improve production indicators. A total of 61 juveni...

The aims of this study were the characterization of the upper olfactory epithelium of cultured and wild Senegalese sole mature males at histological and transcriptomic (using RNA-Seq) level. No significant differences in tissue structure, cell types and cellular distribution pattern (olfactory sensory neurons) were identified between cultured and w...

Por primera vez se describen parámetros de dominancia en el lenguado a diferentes recursos limitados.

The intensive culture of the Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) is hampered by the low or null fertilization rates exhibited by the first generation (F1) of reared males. To investigate the regulation of the reproductive processes in this species by the pituitary gonadotropins follicle-stimulating and luteinizing hormones (Fsh and Lh, respectivel...

The culture of Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) has attracted investment during the economic crisis (2008-2013) (Howell et al., 2011). However, expansion has been limited as broodstock reared in captivity, G1 generation, present a complete reproductive failure and absence of successful spawning. The failure has been attributed to G1 males, whic...

El lenguado senegalés es una especie comercialmente importante en el sur de Europa. No obstante, los machos G1 presentan disfunciones reproductivas relativas al comportamiento. Se ha establecido que los peces afrontan las situaciones estrés de forma variable. En el presente estudio se analizaron 6 pruebas para identificar el tipo de afrontamiento a...

The morphological structure and morphology of the olfactory organs in a seawater flatfish, Solea senegalensis, has been analysed. This fish is asymmetric, there were two nasal openings, one is located in dorsal part (eye side) and the other one is located in ventral part (blind side). A pair of olfactory rosettes is lodged in the depression called...

The term stress coping styles is widely used in various ethological areas in order to define the “individual variation” in behaviour and physiology of organisms confronted with a stressor. It has been established that fish and others vertebrates, including humans, exhibit two main stress response behaviours: proactive and reactive. Proactive organi...