Dr. Uros Ljubobratovic - MATE Research
Overview
Uros Ljubobratovic is a senior research fellow at the Research Center of Fisheries and Aquaculture of the Institute of Aquaculture and Environmental Safety. He serves as chair of the Department of Aquaculture-Technology.
His research focuses on the intensive culture of perciforms and sturgeons while his main expertise lies in the artificial reproduction of pikeperch.
The work of Uros contributes to questions of the progress of oocyte maturation competence and how its status modifies the quality of the egg upon hormonal induction of ovulation.
His theoretical work examines how different hormonal, environmental and nutritional factors affect the dynamics of oocyte maturation where the main model species is pikeperch. His empirical work has assessed these theories in settings ranging from inexperienced broodstock to fully formed breeders, in the indoor and outdoor reared fish to the level of reproductive cycle shift, also in the contexts of different nutrition and thermal regimes as well as hormonal preparations.
Across his research, he uses the methods of egg quality predictors from vitellogenetic and maturing oocyte over the estimation of in vitro oocyte maturation dynamics to the main indicators of egg quality in terms of embryonic survival and larval morphology indices.
Uros pioneered the development of broodstock forming using outdoor and indoor rearing technologies, designed and executed protocols for different approaches towards stable and repeatable off-seasonal egg production.
His findings are instrumental in the artificial reproduction of pikeperch. He contributed significantly to the general understanding of oocyte maturation competence in percids.
He authored and co-authored over 30 research articles in high-impact scientific journals.
Uros Ljubobratovic collaborated with eight research groups across Europe, and he has successfully applied for several research grants nationally and internationally. He won the prestigious Bolyai János Research Scholarship.
He is an Editorial Board Member of the Czech Journal of Animal Science.
Research keywords:
Publications
Ljubobratović, U., Kitanović, N., Milla, S., Marinović, Z., Fazekas, G., Stanivuk, J., Nagy, Z. & Horváth, Á. (2023). Predicting population's oocyte maturation competence and evaluating individual's latency time using in vitro oocyte maturation in pikeperch (Sander lucioperca). Aquaculture, 562, p.738851. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2022.738851
Ljubobratović, U., Bogár, K., Káldy, J., Fazekas, G., Vass, N., Feledi, T. & Kovács, G. (2022). Optimizing the gonadoliberin dosage and evaluating the egg quality in the preseason and seasonal artificial reproduction of pond-reared sterlet Acipenser ruthenus. Animal Reproduction Science, 247, p.107097. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anireprosci.2022.107097
Ljubobratović, U., Fazekas, G., Nagy, Z., Kovács, G., Tóth, F., Fehér, D. & Żarski, D. (2022). Fish with larger pre-seasonal oocytes yields lower egg quality in season–A case study of outdoor-cultured domesticated pikeperch (Sander lucioperca). Animal Reproduction Science, 238, p.106936. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anireprosci.2022.106936
Stanivuk, J., Berzi-Nagy, L., Gyalog, G., Ardó, L., Vitál, Z., Plavša, N., Krstović, S., Fazekas, G.L., Horváth, Á., & Ljubobratović, U. (2024). The rank of intensification factors strength in intensive pond production of common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.). Aquaculture, 583, p.740584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2024.740584
Fazekas, G., Müller, T., Stanivuk, J., Fazekas, D.L., Káldy, J., Tóth, F., Bürgés, J., Colchen, T., Vass, N. and Ljubobratovič, U., 2023. Evaluation of applying environmental enrichment to sterlets (Acipenser ruthenus L.) in early life stages. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 268, p.106090. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2023.106090
Projects
NKFI PD 139053: In vitro oocyte maturation dynamics in pikeperch (Sander lucioperca)
This project aims to evaluate the oocyte maturational competence development in pikeperch and its oocyte maturation dynamics using both in vivo and in vitro methods. By using both approaches parallelly, the objective is to relate the in vitro and in vivo maturation dynamics as well as to egg quality leading towards the development of in vitro method for the assessment of readiness of female breeder for artificial induction. Furthermore, the outcome of the project will lead to a better understanding of the biology of maturation competence development in percids and the potential usability of in vitro maturation as a predictor of egg quality in fish.
H2020-EU.1.4.1.2 871108: AQUAculture infrastructures for EXCELlence in EUropean fish research 3.0
EU-funded AQUAEXCEL3.0 integrates 40 top-class research facilities from biology to technology in all types of rearing systems, and covering all major EU farmed species and promising new species, it will expand access to high-quality services and resources. The 3Rs (reduction, refinement and replacement) are key to this project, which will provide research and industry with new services focused on their needs. The enhanced scope includes shellfish, macroalgae and recyclers (insects, marine worms) to move towards a more sustainable and circular aquaculture. https://aquaexcel.eu
