Seafood CRC: Improvements in Yellowtail Kingfish larval and juvenile survival and quality
Yellowtail Kingfish culture is a rapidly expanding industry in Australia, particularly in rural South Australia, where it is driving the increase in the ‘other’ category of aquaculture production from ~1100 tonnes valued at ~$9 million in 2002-03 to 2000 tonnes and $17 million in 2004-05 (ABARE, 2006). Regarding future production, CST alone are projecting an increase in annual production towards 8,000 T by 2015.
CST is the largest producer of Yellowtail Kingfish in Australia having produced over 1.25 M juveniles in 2007. The company operates two Yellowtail Kingfish hatcheries at Arno Bay and Port Augusta. The production of quality larvae from hatcheries underpins the production of farmed fish and low survival and high levels of malformations significantly increase costs.
Survival of Yellowtail Kingfish juveniles in Australian marine hatcheries is very low in comparison to many other marine species such as sea bass and bream produced in larger more mature industries, for example in Europe. Of particular note, several skeletal malformations have been reported in Australia and New Zealand, although few are well documented (Yellowtail Kingfish, Cobcroft et al., 2004).
There is also high variability in hatchery survival rates and the rate and severity of deformities among production runs and commercial hatcheries.
By way of illustration, the direct benefit to Clean Seas Tuna Ltd. of reducing malformations in Yellowtail Kingfish is estimated to be $1 million p.a. In this example a reduction in malformations from 40% to 20% (on 2.0 M juveniles before quality grading) could produce a further 400,000 good quality juveniles @ $2.50 (market value) = $1,000,000.
Seafood CRC: The advancement of reproductive development in Southern Bluefin Tuna using hormonal manipulations of kisspeptin, the gatekeeper of puberty
Seafood CRC: The advancement of reproductive development in Southern Bluefin Tuna using hormonal manipulations of kisspeptin, the gatekeeper of puberty
SCRC: Seafood CRC: Australian Seafood CRC: 0.5 FTE Postdoctoral Research Fellow - UniSA -Seafood Productivity Engineer
The postdoctoral appointee will be located within the School of Advanced Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering (AME) at UniSA. The AME has a range of activities and expertise that will be of direct relevance to the postdoc position and the Seafood CRC.
AME has:-
- Recently launched a Master degree program in Logistics and Supply Chain Management for external delivery of the program.
- Need for industry based engineering projects for its final year mechanical engineering students and Masters by coursework students. Thus projects identified by the Seafood Productivity Engineer will be undertaken by final year students.
- A PhD research program which can tackle some very complex and long term engineering issues for the Seafood industry.
- Staff with expertise in energy reduction and efficient refrigeration for both storage and product transportation.
- Staff with expertise in robotics and machine vision for automation.
- Staff with interests in recycling and life cycle analysis.
- Extensive facilities for testing and evaluating equipment used in seafood processing, storage and transportation.
- A range of softwares for modelling of mechanical systems and technologies.
- Laboratory for product sorting, sizing and separation.
- Collaboration with engineers working in the seafood industry in Israel’s Agricultural Research Organisation.
- Track record of working with companies to develop solutions appropriate to the needs of industry.
SCRC: PhD: Processing of Sea cucumber viscera for bioactive compounds
Relevance to industry priorities and to Seafood CRC Milestones:
Relevance to Output 1.7 Smart processing technologies and practices.
Addresses the industry priority of New high-value products derived from Australian sea cucumber and New Australian Aquaculture industry for sea cucumber products.
Australian seafood processing co-products, such as SCV are currently discarded. To sustain the future growth of the seafood industry, it is essential to turn these wastes into resources for the development of value-added opportunities for the seafood industry. This area of research has been identified by both Australian seafood industry and the CRC program, through our engagement with seafood processors such as Tasmanian Seafoods Pty. Ltd.
The Flinders Centre for Marine Bioproducts and Bioprocessing has been set up to meet this R&D challenge for the Australian seafood industry. Our engagement with industry partners, particularly Tasmanian Seafoods Pty. Ltd., and extensive consultations with CRC Program Leaders, especially Dr John Carragher, has assisted us in developing this proposal.
The results of the project will make a significant contribution to the sustainable utilization of Australian sea cucumber resources by developing value-added bioproducts from sea cucumber processing wastes, such as the viscera of the sea cucumber. This in turn will significantly aid the growth of the industry, especially into export markets where demand for high-quality Australian seafood products has been increasing.
This project will contribute to the CRC Milestones 1.7.3 “Innovative technologies and approaches to recover under-utilized product (by-catch and processing by-products) trialled and evaluated from at least one sector per annum”.
Final report
Sea cucumbers are prolific producers of a wide range of bioactive compounds, which are potential sources of agrichemical, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical products.
Sea cucumbers expel their internal organs as a defence mechanism called evisceration. We hypothesize that the reason for their ingenious form of defence is because their internal organs contain high levels of compounds that repel predators. To our knowledge, no study has investigated the contribution of saponins from the viscera of any sea cucumber species. Therefore, this project is aimed at the characterisation of the triterpene glycosides, saponins, from the viscera (and body wall) of selected Australian sea cucumber species using high-throughput technologies such as HPCPC and mass spectrometry. The longer term aim is to develop the novel compounds for pharmaceutical or nutraceutical or cosmeceutical application. We will describe the saponin distributions of Holothuria lessoni and Stichopus hermanni in detailed as representatives of two different families to reveal how their saponin profiles are different.