COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF SOME SEMEN PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURED AND WILD AFRICAN CATFISH (Clarias gariepinus, Burchell, 1822) BROODSTOCK

__________________________________________________________________ The aim of this study was to compare some semen physical characteristics of both wild and cultured Clarias gariepinus broodstocks in order to know their relative economic advantages to farmers. Nine male broodstocks were selected with their weight ranges between 700g to1250g, with total length ranges between 51.50cm to 61.00cm. The fish were sacrificed by spinal transaction, after which the fish were dissected and the gonads were removed. The gonads were examined after weighing, and were evaluated for pH, motility, volume and sperm concentration. Descriptive statistics was used to find their minimum and maximum values. Student t-test was used to analysed the differences of their means. Also, the relationships between semen parameters were tested using the bivariate correlation coefficients of pearson. Significant differences (P<0.05) were observed in semen mean progressive motility (%), pH, volume (ml), weight of gonads (g) of Cultured (88.00±6.96%, 7.22±0.26, 8.01±1.13ml, 4.16±1.59g) and Wild (56.30±42.30, 6.89±0.33, 5.80±0.40, 2.01±1.02) broodstocks, respectively. There was significant correlation (P<0.05) between pH and progressive motility, volume and concentration, weight of gonads and volume of the Cultured broodstocks. There was a significant correlation (P<0.05) between weight of gonads and concentration of both Cultured and Wild African Catfish. The semen quality of the cultured broodstocks was higher than that of wild broodstocks and this may be due to differences in their environment and their feeding conditions. It is recommended that further research should be done on evolutionary and genetic performance of wild African catfish.

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