A review on usual methods of sturgeon sexing and gonad staging (Acipenseridae): advantages and disadvantages

Different studies on sturgeon sexing and gonad staging especially at early life history showed that some methods, such as biopsy, catheter and endoscopy, can cause severe physical damage to the fish in addition to high expenses. Also, the different genetic methods do not have suitable efficiency for sturgeon sexing. Methods like biometric and external morphology of fish urogenital opening are not sufficiently accurate for sexing. However, use of sex steroid hormone profiles and other blood biochemical indices and sonography techniques can lead to sex differentiation to some extent at high stages of maturity, but not at lower stages. Also, use of these methods is time consuming, expensive and need experts. Studies showed that different ways of sturgeon sexing and gonad staging can be used depending on aims, age and weight conditions. Results of this analytic study showed that laparoscopy and ultrasound methods, which are from less invasive and non-invasive methods respectively, are the best techniques for sturgeon in different sexing and gonad staging in various agesgroups, respectively.