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7.5 Energy metabolism
Energy metabolism is concerned with the catabolism and oxidation of carbohydrates, lipid and
protein within the animal body, and the consequent release and use of the liberated energy as
work for the maintenance of the life process. The sequence of biochemical events which lead to
the release and utilization of food energy is well known and common to all farm animals. For
detailed information on this aspect readers should refer to any standard text book on cell
biochemistry. It is sufficient to mention here that the free energy liberated from the catabolism
and oxidation of the major food nutrients is not utilized directly by the animal, but rather is
trapped in the chemical form of the energy-rich phosphorus bond of adenosine triphosphate
(ATP). It is ATP which is the principal driving force in the energy-requiring biochemical
processes of life. For example, energy for muscle contraction is provided by the cleavage of
ATP to adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and inorganic phosphate. The central role of ATP in
cellular energetics is shown in Figure 5.
Energy metabolism in fish and shrimp is different from that of terrestrial farm animals in two
important respects. Firstly, in contrast to warm-blooded animals, fish and shrimp are aquatic
ectotherms and so do not have to expend energy in maintaining a body temperature well above
ambient at 37°C. Fish and shrimp therefore have much lower maintenance energy requirements
than terrestrial farm animals (Cho and Kaushik, 1985). For example, the maintenance energy
requirement per unit body weight of the chick is reported to be about five times greater than that
of common carp growing at 23°C (Nijkamp, van Es, and Huisman, 1974). Secondly, fish and
shrimp are able to obtain 10–20% more energy from the catabolism of proteins than terrestrial
farm animals, as they do not have to convert ammonia (the end product of protein catabolism)
into less toxic substances (ie. urea or uric acid) prior to excretion (Brett and Groves, 1979). For
example, in salmonids 85% and 15% of the branchial and urinary nitrogen loss is reported to be
in the form ammonia and urea respectively (Luquet, 1982). The excretion of waste nitrogen
therefore requires less energy in these aquatic animals; a diagrammatic representation of
nitrogen balance in fish is shown in Figure 6.
Figure 5. Central role of ATP in cellular energetics