conclusion, some of the isolates have a broad
application potential, both in food fermentation and as
probiotic strains. In this sense, the isolated strains have the
capacity of producing enzymes useful for the shrimp food
industry. With the introduction of the ‘functional food’
concept, it is clear that there is an important niche for
probiotics, prebiotics or their combination (synbiotics)
approaches. The use of both probiotics and prebiotics will
probably increase dramatically worldwide, because of the
strong commercial interests in providing these supplements
to aquatic animals. However, more careful research is
required before health claims gain improved scientific
credibility. In addition, studies to examine the relationships
between nutrition, diseases and the environmental factors
should be given more attention. Furthermore, it is
important to consider that pro, pre and synbiotics bacteria
are food product supplements and not drugs or antibiotics.
In future work we will focus on evaluation of probiotic
foods for shrimps under culture conditions.