Seafood CRC: increasing seedstock production of domesticated giant tiger prawns (Penaeus monodon) through improved male fertility

Funded Activity Summary

Improving domestication of P. monodon is listed as the top R&D target within the APFA five-year plan (2007-2012). Improving fertility is listed as a key strategy for improving domestication.

If domesticated P. monodon broodstock can be produced economically at a commercial scale, Australian prawn farmers will be in a position to significantly improve farm yields and profitability through selective breeding. To date, P. monodon breeding programs have used both green-water pond systems and clear water systems for rearing domesticated broodstock; with the different systems having certain advantages and disadvantages. Developing protocols enabling a pond-rearing phase within the broodstock production cycle has potential to greatly reduce costs of broodstock production, allowing more companies to maintain domesticated lines and increase production of domesticated-selected seedstock throughout the industry.

In 2002, an APFA-lead research consortium carried out a series of FRDC-funded projects to establish a traditional family-based selection program largely using pond-rearing. However, throughout 2006 and 2007, problems with reproductive tract development and fertility of the pond-reared males significantly compromised the domesticated stocks within the program. In two successive generations across two different pond environments, the gonadal development and fertility of the pond-reared males was found compromised. This project aims to determine ‘if’ and ‘how’ a pond-rearing phase can play a role in producing commercially-viable numbers of P. monodon broodstock.

Seedstock production of broodstock reared in clear water systems has also consistently been constrained by low egg fertilisation. However, the effect that male fertility is having on egg fertilisation rates in clear water systems is not known. The proposed project aims to develop reliable means to evaluate male fertility, and practical measure/s of male fertility which can be used by industry. Such objective measures of male fertility will enable male constraints to seedstock production to be identified and overcome.


Objectives:
1. Determine whether assessments of spermatophore development and sperm count must be standardised to the moulting cycle to allow accurate evaluation of male fertility.
2. Determine whether male fertility at the time of mating can be predicted by earlier fertility assessments (i.e. months prior to mating).
3. Determine whether sperm count and/or morphology are objective measures (estimators) of male fertility.
4. Develop practical and predictive means to evaluate male fertility that can be used by industry (using outcomes of objectives 1, 2, 3).
5. Determine whether the reproductive development and health of tank-reared males differs significantly when males are fed a ‘typical’ pond diet with or without being exposed to a short term low temperature stress compared to males fed a ‘typical’ broodstock diet with or without being exposed to a short term low temperature stress.
6. Determine whether the reproductive development and health of males differs significantly when males are reared in outdoor ponds at different densities; transferred from ponds to tanks at different ages, and; in tanks maintained under ideal broodstock-rearing conditions from juvenile to adult.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2009

End Date: 30-11-2010

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $78,100.00

Funder: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

There are no FoR codes available for this funding activity

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Aquaculture | Depredation | Husbandry | Reproduction | Stakeholder

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