Microbiological evolution of gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) in Canary Islands during ice storage

Abstract

This study analyses the microbiological changes with traditional methods for total mesophilic aerobic, psychrotrophic, Aeromonas sp., Pseudomonas sp., Shewanella putrefaciens, Enterobacteriaceae, sulfide-reducing Clostridium and Photobacterium phosphoreum in muscle, skin and gills of whole ungutted gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) stored in ice during 18 days. The muscle tissue showed the minor grade of contamination, followed by the skin and the gills, with statistic significance (p < 0.001). The most prominent microorganisms in the different tissues and at the end of the storage were Pseudomonas sp. (7.76, 10.11 and 10.40 log CFU/g), Aeromonas sp. (7.49, 8.24 and 9.02 log CFU/g) and S. putrefaciens (8.05, 7.49 and 8.05 log CFU/g) in sea bream harvested in the temperate water of the Canary Islands. The results obtained from this study can contribute to the improvement of microbiological knowledge of gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) by determining the evolution of microorganisms responsible for spoilage and their counts in different tissues such as muscle, skin, and gills during iced storage.