The purpose of the research was to determine whether the endocrine profiles of plasma follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) changed as a result of thermal exposure, broodstock age or hormonal treatment in farmed female Atlantic Salmon. FSH promotes the production of testosterone, oestrogen and oocyte (egg) growth while LH controls oocyte maturation and ovulation. There is some evidence to suggest that fish reared at 22 °C (equivalent of a warm Tasmanian summer) have higher levels of circulating FSH compared to fish reared at 14 °C (ideal temperature) and this is probably due to abnormal oestrogen levels (and therefore feedback mechanisms) in fish reared at high temperature.

An in vitro experiment was performed in Seattle that investigated the affect of elevated temperature and hormonal treatment on the expression levels of genes involved in testosterone production in ovarian fragments isolated from Coho Salmon. For the first time, it was shown that the relative expression of several genes involved in testosterone production was impaired by increased temperature in vitro. From this trial, a suite of candidate genes that may contribute to low T levels and therefore reproductive performance in Atlantic Salmon reared at 22 °C have been identified.

These results combined with previous work demonstrate that dysfunction at multiple levels in the endocrine cascade controlling reproductive development in thermally challenged female Atlantic Salmon is likely. This work also shows that formulating management strategies that improve reproductive performance in Atlantic Salmon reared at elevated temperature is no easy feat. However, as the CRC are learning more about how reproductive physiology changes with various therapeutic, biological (i.e. age) and environmental conditions, the CRC is becoming better positioned to make informed choices that will benefit the aquaculture industry in Australia.

Since colonisation, Australia has been a country that relies heavily upon the export of its agricultural produce to contribute to the wealth and prosperity of the nation. However, in recent times, the export focus and capability of the agricultural industry has decreased. Whilst the overall importance of exporting is recognised in the academic literature, the determinants of export propensity in countries outside the United States and the European Union have received little attention. This gap in the literature is despite the reality that improving the export propensity of Australian agricultural firms has become an area of increasing importance to government bodies and private industry alike. More specifically, this need for improvement and growth is especially the case for the Australian seafood industry.

A thorough review of the extant literature identified several factors that have a direct association with a firm's export propensity. This research proposed that a firm's human resources, relationship capabilities and information capabilities impact on their export propensity.
The research design adopted for this study was comprised of two stages. The first stage was a qualitative, exploratory stage consisting of four in-depth interviews with seafood industry experts. The second stage consisted of case study interviews where data was collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews with senior management from two prawn farms and two prawn fishers.

The findings indicate that a firm's internal resources and capabilities do impact on export propensity, particularly the commitment and experience of managerial staff, information capabilities and relationship capability to a lesser degree, play an important role in creating export propensity.

Body colouration, an important survival, mate selection and communication mechanism for animals in the wild, has also significant commercial implications. In aquaculture, a darker body colour in prawns can increase farm profitability by AU$ 2-4 dollar per kilo of prawns. Therefore, there is a strong commercial interest in increasing colour intensity of prawns grown in captivity. In this study, the focus was on F. merguiensis, and the determination of factors that could be involved in colour formation in this species.

Molecular techniques were employed to clone and isolate crustacyanin subunits, genes known to be responsible for colouration in other crustacean species, from the muscle/cuticle tissue of F. merguiensis prawns and to develop gene specific primers to quantify the levels of crustacyanin gene expression in the cuticle of prawns displaying three different colour phenotypes (albino, light and dark).

The sequences encoding for the crustacyanin subunits A and C were isolated from the cuticle tissue in F. merguiensis and their expression levels characterised in prawns displaying different colouration patterns.