A team of scientists at Roskilde University in Denmark have found one species of copepod, Apocyclops royi, which does not need to eat algae to become full of omega-3. Hakai Magazine reported that this species produces the fatty acid itself by converting the simple fats found in yeast into omega-3. They expect their findings to be published early this year.
The Roskilde team mixed yeast with water, feed it with sugar and added a few copepods obtaining a batch of omega-3 rich copepods. They say they were inspired by several studies from Asia on tropical copepods species that live on yeast.
“Algae requires a lot of light, fertilizers, water and space to grow. But you don’t need energy, chemicals or labour to produce yeast,” says Hans van Someren Gréve, a postdoctoral researcher.
“Yeast-feed copepods could transform aquaculture introducing a more sustainable and less-expensive source of fatty acids than the algae-feed copepods,” says Betsy Riley, a fisheries policy expert at Michigan State University.
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