Acronym SELCOP
Category
Aquaculture
Title Selective Breeding of Copepods Programme National Programme
Instrument (FP6)
Contact Type (FP7)
Strand (Interreg)
NA
Theme (FP7)
Activity Area (FP6)
Regional Area (Interreg)
Action (COST)
NA
Specific Programme (FP7)
NA
Funding source National Coordinator Andreas Hagemann Coordinator email andreas.hagemann@sintef.no
Coordinator institution
NA
Institutions involved
NOFIMA - Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research (Norway) ,
NA - SINTEF Ocean (Norway) ,
Start year 2021 End year 2025 Funding (€) € 600,000 Website https://www.sintef.no/en/projects/2021/selcop/ Summary CFEED produces copepod eggs for the marine larviculture industry. An increase of per capita egg production would immediately result in increased income and company value. Selective breeding is a powerful tool to increase the performance of a population for desirable traits, and fecundity is a highly heritable trait in copepods which makes selective breeding a promising approach to permanently increase egg production in a population. By establishing a new line of highly fecund copepods through a selective breeding program, both egg production yields and resource utilization rates can be significantly improved. Such an innovation will facilitate economically sustainable company growth, enable higher turnovers and enable more competitive pricing. SELCOP will, for the first time, initiate a selective breeding program for Acartia tonsa to improve egg production rates for the current, commercial copepod population. We will develop and make use of advanced image analysis methodologies, using tailored optics and machine learning to achieve high accuracy monitoring of egg production rates in the breeding experiments. Our commercial production trials will test the improved strain to assess genetic gains in a realistic production environment. The overarching aim of the project is to bring forth an improved line of copepods with higher egg production rates and implement these in the daily operation at CFEEDs factory to increase resource utilization using autonomous production tanks innovated in SELCOP. This would reduce labour costs and increase stability and predictability in the production. The innovations will facilitate sustainable company growth in terms of increased production volumes and economic competitiveness, and unique, patentable technology which in turn will enable higher turnovers and more competitive pricing. With SELCOP, CFEED will take key steps towards manifesting the company's share in the global aquaculture markets for marine fish and shrimp species.
Keywords
Crustacean;
Shellfish;
Genetic;
Technology;
Land-based aquaculture;
Selective breeding;
Marine Region
76
Not associated to marine areas
0
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