Growth Performance and Intestinal Microbiota Diversity in Pacific White Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei Fed with a Probiotic Bacterium, Honey Prebiotic, and Synbiotic

This study aimed to evaluate the growth performance and intestinal microbiota composition in Pacific white shrimp after probiotic, honey prebiotic, or synbiotic treatment. Pacific white shrimp were treated for 45 days with probiotic (1% (v/w) of Bacillus sp. NP5 RfR probiotic), prebiotic (0.5% (v/w) of honey prebiotic), synbiotic (1% (v/w) of probiotic and 0.5% (v/w) prebiotic), or control (without addition of probiotic and prebiotic). Next-generation sequencing (NGS) was used to assess the effects of these treatments on growth performance and intestinal microbial diversity. The administration of a probiotic, prebiotic, or synbiotic led to increases in specific growth rate, feed conversion ratio, and digestive enzyme activities of amylase, protease, and lipase in Pacific white shrimp. The prebiotic treatment demonstrated the greatest effect, with values of growth rate of 3.09 ± 0.02 (% day−1), feed conversion ratio of 1.45 ± 0.00, and enzyme activities of 1.388 ± 0.0211 IU mg−1 protein for amylase, 0.055 ± 0.0004 IU mg−1 protein for protease, and 0.152 ± 0.0025 IU mg−1 protein for lipase. Analysis of the intestinal microbiota diversity revealed that prebiotic administration caused dominance of the phylum Bacteroidetes, whereas the probiotic and synbiotic treatments caused dominance of the phylum Proteobacteria. Moreover, prebiotic treatment was able to increase the diversity of Microbacterium, Lactobacillus, and Neptunomonas, which are established probiotic candidates in aquaculture. The probiotic, prebiotic, and synbiotic treatments induced a number of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) significantly higher than control treatment, that is, 470, 480, 451, and 344 OTU, respectively.