The Australian prawn farmers are under intense competition from cheaper imported prawns. Most of the imported prawns are in the small size segment. Female prawns grow larger then males, therefore the creation of all-female prawn populations will provide a much needed competitive advantage and enable a more profitable farming of P. monodon in Australia.

There is a need to meet the CRC’s desired $240 million gain in seafood value through innovative technologies as scheduled in the CRC program 1. This proposal will contribute up to 47% of this CRC goal, as explained in the “background” section.

This application also meets the need to respond to the FRDC’s challenge 3 (response to demand, profitability) and FRDC priority “develop innovative processes for value-adding through
development” (genetic improvement will return greater profit per kg, or increase kgs for same infrastructure). Should the “Seafarm” transformational model be adopted by others, this will directly support the achievement of FRDC’s key performance indicators “at least two companies accessing new markets”, and “at least two entities utilizing improved stock from selective breeding”.

This application supports the stated and written need from the APFA, as a major stakeholder, to achieve a method to apply its R&D levy for the whole of the industry, for both P. monodon and F. merguiensis. The application makes the case that as a transformational model for profitability through innovative technologies this project delivers industry wide outcomes

During the past 5 years Australian farmed barramundi production has increased from 2,700 tonnes in 2003/04 to an expected 6,000 tonnes in 2008/09 while average farm gate prices have fallen. This coupled with the current global recession is impacting significantly on the profitability of the barramundi farmers.

There is an opportunity and need to develop and implement a repositioning strategy for the domestic market that enables Australian farmed Baramundi to be differentiated from its competitors and to deliver on consumer expectations for quality and price.

The economic viability of sea cage farming of Atlantic salmon is strongly influenced by the cost of
production of smolts. Understanding the mechanisms that contribute to, or cause reproductive failure in
spawning fish is an essential component of reducing those industry production costs, and at a broader
level, ensuring that there are sufficient smolts produced each year to maintain industry production. The
issue has been identified as an industry priority with the stated SALTAS aim of reducing the reliance on
repeat spawning fish for egg production. The potential cost of failing to solve the problem is high. The
survival of eggs to the eyed embryo stage can be as low as 30-50%, compared with 80% for eggs from
best performing fish (SALTAS data). Modelling of this cost gives direct increases in smolt production
costs of $225,000 per annum, but a potential industry shortfall in production terms of $15-20 million per
annum.

The knowledge gained through this research will be applied in a real life context to the Atlantic salmon industry in Australia to overcome a real and immediate industry bottleneck, and provide information to assist in large scale production procedures. It will provide important new information regarding the endocrine regulation of egg quality, information that could be highly relevant to other finfish industries, such as tuna and kingfish.

In addition to the direct benefit of this research to the Salmon industry, the investigation of the impact of temperature on reproductive process in fish is relevant to environmental studies concerning the impact of global warming on biological processes, with the Atlantic salmon being an example of a fish that has been translocated from a colder environment (Europe) to the warmer Tasmania.

This application is for an international bursary to attend a two week intensive course on next generation sequencing.

The course, held by Michigan University, will cover all aspects of bioinformatics analysis needed for transcriptomes and genome sequencing, as well as train in the analysis of sequences the course participants bring themselves.

At USC we have moved into the field of transcriptome and genome sequencing, and now have transcriptomes of 8 prawn tissues, pearl oyster, 2 fish tissues, and we are about to embark on sea cucumber and edible oyster sequencing, as well as tuna genomics. While capable of doing the basic analysis, this resource offers much more, and this course would train me for such analysis.

There are not many groups in Australia doing wide genome analysis of aquaculture species, and this training and materials provided in the course would put me in a position to not only service my FRDC and CRC grant industry partners, but also to train interested parties in Australia who are interested in expanding into this field. USC is investing in building up its aquaculture genetics portfolio, and this training opportunity would add to the strength of the group.

Elizur would extend her knowledge gained in this travel to the aquaculture community through lectures at a CRC or industry forums where there is potential for uptake. She will communicate with the CRC about opportunities to present to the student forum where molecular approaches could be adopted to address some of the research questions.