Assessment of the interactive effects of climate change, floods and discard stress on the commercially important Mud Crab (Scylla serrata) and Blue Swimmer Crab (Portunus armatus) - postgraduate

Funded Activity Summary

Environmental conditions and chemical contaminants present in natural environments influence the physiology and body condition of marine species (Lloret, Shulman et al. 2014, Champion, Hobday et al. 2020, Bolin, Schoeman et al. 2021, Butcherine, Kelaher et al. 2021). Understanding these relationships may enable fishers to avoid fishing at times or in locations when survival or resource quality are compromised. Assessing how extreme levels of environmental variation that prevail in estuarine systems, in conjunction with associated inputs of key agricultural chemicals affect the survival, physiology and flesh quality of the commercially valuable giant mud and blue swimmer crabs is required to develop this capacity. Further, netted gears (including gillnets, trawls and traps) are used to target (or incidentally catch) giant mud and blue swimmer crabs in NSW estuaries, but these are poorly selective for minimum legal sizes (Leland, Butcher et al. 2013), resulting in massive proportions of individuals (e.g. up to > 50 %) being discarded with at least some physical damage (typically missing appendages; Leland, Butcher et al. 2013). This project will integrate the effects of major rain fall events with associated inputs from agricultural run-off and simulated discarding to gain an in-depth understanding of how environmental change, land-use and discarding impacts the study species.

Objectives:
1. Provide the opportunity for a post-graduate research student to work with industry and managers, gain exposure to stakeholder’s perspectives on the issue and undertake high-quality research that results in the production of scientific outputs.
2. To correlate physiological indicators in giant mud and blue swimmer crabs with water quality parameters in different catchments during run-off events
3. To assess the synergistic effects of low salinity, pesticides simulated discarding on biochemical stress biomarkers in giant mud and blue swimmer crabs
4. To assess the effects of agricultural run-off and reduced salinity during flooding on the condition, texture and appearance of flesh from harvested giant mud and blue swimmer crabs.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-06-2022

End Date: 01-04-2026

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $75,000.00

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

Animal Health | Capacity Building | Commercial Species | Discard | RAC NSW | Recreational Fishing

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