Recently, tilapia culture has intensified,
due mainly to high prices of the export market
to the USA and growth of internal markets
in American countries (Costa-Pierce
1997). However, this is originally a subsistence
activity with low productivity (Engle
1997). Until today, farmers stocked at low
densities to take advantage of natural food
present in the ponds and generally, no manufactured
feed was supplied. Many of these
culture systems were not profitable (Engle
1997). Therefore, polyculture systems in- .
corporating high market value species, such
as freshwater prawns, may be important to
optimize these enterprises.
In this context, this study was designed
to evaluate the effect of stocking prawns
Macrobrachium rosenbergii at increasing
densities in ponds with Nile tilapia Oreochrornis
niloticus stocked at low density.