Acronym SporLaks
Category
Fisheries
Title Industry-wide tracing of Norwegian farmed Atlantic salmon 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 Matthew Baranski Coordinator email matthew.baranski@nofima.no
Coordinator institution
NOFIMA - Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research (Norway)
Institutions involved
NINA - Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (Norway) ,
DPI - NSW Department of Primary Industries (Australia) ,
WUR-IMARES - Wageningen University and Research; Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem Studies (Netherlands) ,
Start year 2012 End year 2013 Funding (€) € 473,040 Website https://www.fhf.no/prosjekter/prosjektbasen/900708/ Summary The foundation of this project was to use parentage assignment methods in order to trace farmed escapees back to the farm or company at the source of the escape with 100% precision. For this purpose we aimed to use highly informative microsatellite DNA markers. Parentage assignment using microsatellite methods are well established for many species, but for Atlantic salmon there is a lack of high-quality and highly-informative microsatellite markers to use for this purpose. To rectify this, we mined the Atlantic salmon genome to discover microsatellite markers that could be used for this purpose. From the 30,000 microsatellite markers we found, we chose the best markers based on their characteristics and compiled two highly informative microsatellite panels, MP10 (12 markers) and MP11 (10 markers). Upon testing these panels across a diverse sample set, the number of alleles in each is 236 (MP10) and 244 (MP11); and the combined exclusion probabilities are 1.00000 (100%). Results from empirical and simulated assignments using these markers show they are extremely powerful and the combination of both panels will achieve a level of accuracy approaching 100% in tracing escaped farmed salmon from Norwegian Atlantic salmon aquaculture industry. One limitation of this approach is the practical and logistic challenges involved in sampling the approximately 50 000 broodstock in production in Norway. For this to occur, standardised methods for sampling, identification and DNA extraction need to be in place. We evaluated different methods for sampling using biopsy tools and barcode-labelled vials that are promising for an industry-wide application. We further evaluated common DNA extraction methods using different tissue and preservation methods across different laboratories and found that there was a statistically significant effect on the DNA quality based upon both the type of DNA extraction and the laboratory performing extraction. It is recommended based on these results that industry-scale sampling and DNA extraction is put out to tender for laboratories of sufficient capacity and experience. From the results of this study, we can conclude that DNA tracing of escaped farmed salmon using microsatellite DNA is feasible, however there are logistical challenges that must be met in terms of the dissemination of genetic material throughout the industry. In practise, an optimal solution would be to limit the genetic material in order that different companies operating within a limited geographic range do not obtain genetic material from the same source. Further, a database needs to be established in which the identification and dissemination of each of the 50 000 broodstock is recorded along with their microsatellite DNA profile.
The main goal of this research project is to develop, validate and scientifically document the performance of microsatellite DNA markers to trace suspected escaped farmed salmon caught in the wild back to their parents. Secondary objectives were as follows: (1) To develop and evaluate efficient laboratory protocols for sample handling and storage; (2) To identify a set of microsatellite markers of high quality and polymorphism; (3) To combine these microsatellites into 'multiplexes' of at least 12 markers for efficient genotyping; (4) To empirically evaluate the power of parentage assignment using these markers using a sample set comprising parents and offspring of known pedigree; (5) To exclude assignment of non-related wild salmon to any parents in this pedigree; (6) To assess the feasibility of the method at the 'industry wide scale' using empirical data generated by the project.
Keywords
Genetic;
Fish;
Salmon;
Environmental impact;
Tagging;
Escapes;
Marine Region
41
Norwegian Sea (27.IIa)
1
Marine Region Map
