During the intensive culture of the pikeperch pelleted foods are offered instead of the natural live prey. The success of the pelleted food consumption significantly influences the effectivity and economy of the production. During the weaning process the fish learn to consume the compound feed, and this is driven by the opposite effect of stress and appetite. Similarly, to the weaning, the same process is supposed to influence the consumption of a new food during a diet change. In our project we study the expression of the candidate genes for stress and appetite to explore their relationship with the consumption of new foods at the critical points of the diet change. Additionally, we compare the total expressed RNA of the individuals consuming and refusing the new foods to identify further genes involved in the process. Since the occurrence of cannibalism could be regulated similarly to the processes described above, the examinations will be performed also with the comparison of cannibalistic and normal individuals. The measurement of the individual differences in the feed intake in fish is not wildly used because of its high labour requirement, but it allows to select the individuals with higher food consumption and better food conversion, and also to map the genetic background behind the individual variation. The final aim of our project is measuring the individual feed intake and conversion, identifying the genes regulating them, and exploring polymorphisms (mutations) which allow to select the individuals with excellent production.

Benes Eszter; Gere Attila; Fodor Marietta: Predicting macronutrients and energy content of snack products using FT-NIR analysis and chemometric techniques; JOURNAL OF FOOD ENGINEERING (0260-8774 1873-5770): 280 Paper 109954. (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2020.109954 

Eszter Benes; Bajusz Dávid; Gere Attila; Fodor Marietta; Rácz Anita: Comprehensive chemometric classification of snack products based on their near infrared spectra; LWT-FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (0023-6438 1096-1127): 133 Paper 110130. (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lwt.2020.110130 

Benes Eszter; Biró Barbara; Fodor Marietta; Gere Attila: Analysis of wheat flour-insect powder mixtures based on their near infrared spectra; FOOD CHEMISTRY: X (2590-1575 2590-1575): 13 Paper 100266. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fochx.2022.100266 

John-Lewis Zinia Zaukuu; Eszter Benes; György Bázár; Zoltán Kovács; Marietta Fodor: Agricultural Potentials of Molecular Spectroscopy and Advances for Food Authentication: An Overview; PROCESSES (2227-9717 2227-9717): 10 2 Paper 214. 42 p. (2022). https://doi.org/10.3390/pr10020214 

Marietta Fodor, Zsuzsa Jókai, Anna Matkovits, Eszter Benes: Assessment of Maturity of Plum Samples Using Fourier Transform Near-Infrared Technique Combined with Chemometric Methods. FOODS 12: 16 Paper: 3059 (2023). https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12163059

Genetic analyses of potential effects of stress on feeding behaviour, feed intake and feeding efficiency in intensively reared pikeperch