SCRC: Tackling microbial related issues in cultured shellfish via integrated molecular and water chemistry approaches

Funded Activity Summary

Over the last few years, the shellfish industry has experienced an increase in unpredictable hatchery and settlement rates of abalone and oyster larvae – batches crash for no apparent reason despite successful spawning and fertilisation. Additionally, farms experience unexplained stock losses during grow-out periods in both land and sea based culture facilities. Recently, the Australian abalone aquaculture industry ranked the ‘investigation into the causes of summer mortality and development of management protocols to minimize or prevent losses’ as one of the top three priorities for the industry (J. Fromm, pers.comm.). In oysters, farmers are looking for indicators of potential culture problems (i.e. hatchery failures) (M. Bermudes, pers.comm.).

Our ability to manage such events would be strengthened if we could determine and subsequently monitor the causative agent. There is evidence from the international literature to suggest that the cause of these events may be microbial in nature and, anecdotally, farmers believe the mortality of shellfish experienced across seasons may be a product of hydrochemistry interactions with bacteria.

Recently, CSIRO developed and adapted a suite of new cost-effective molecular tools that enable complex microbial communities in water, sediment or soil samples to be rapidly described without the need for physical culturing of the microorganisms. The identification of both commensal and harmful microorganisms which are responsive to changes in abiotic environmental parameters, as well as low abundant microbes that represent a reservoir for infection, can now be undertaken using highly sensitive and high throughput genomics techniques. Furthermore, we have developed multivariate statistical approaches capable of describing links between microbial community profiles and causative factors. We are confident that this burgeoning area of research, metagenomics, will have direct uptake and application in a wide range of aquaculture industries (including food protection and human health aspects) particularly given the increasingly cost-effectiveness of next generation sequencing.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 30-09-2011

End Date: 31-03-2013

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funder: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

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ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

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Other Keywords

Aquaculture | Physiology | Reproduction

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