Near-infrared spectroscopy as a novel non-invasive tool to assess spiny lobster nutritional condition

Rapid non-invasive monitoring of spiny lobster nutritional condition has considerable application in the established fishery, live market and prospective aquaculture. The aim of this research was to test the feasibility of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) as a novel non-invasive tool to assess the nutritional condition of three lobster species. Lobster (n = 92) abdominal muscle dry matter (AM_DM) and carbon content (AM_C) correlated significantly with indices of nutritional condition including hepatopancreas dry matter (HP_DM; r_ho = 0.83, 0.78), total lipid content (HP_TL; r_ho = 0.85, 0.87) and haemolymph total protein (TP; r_ho = 0.89, 0.87 respectively). Abdominal muscle nitrogen content (AM_N) was a poor correlate of nutritional condition. Models based on FT-NIR scanning of whole lobster tails successfully predicted AM_DM, AM_N and AM_C (RMSECV = 1.41%, 0.35% and 0.91%; R² = 0.75, 0.65, 0.77, respectively), and to a lower accuracy HP_DM, HP_TL and TP (RMSECV = 6.22%, 8.37%, 18.4 g l^-1; R² = 0.51, 0.70, 0.83, respectively). NIRS was applied successfully to assess the condition of spiny lobsters non-invasively. This pilot study paves the way for the development of crustacean condition models using portable non-invasive devices in the laboratory or in the field.