IATS-Nutrigroup and Fish Pathology groups at AQUAEXCEL2020 Brokerage Event2019-10-25
The second AQUAEXCEL2020 brokerage event was celebrated at Aquaculture Europe 2019 in Berlin, as part of the EATiP Day (October 9th). This event provides an excellent opportunity to share with aquaculture industry stakeholders some of the many innovative outputs emerging from research within the AQUAEXCEL2020 project and through its Transnational Access (TNA) programme. The seven presented outputs had been selected by the AQUAEXCEL2020 Industry and Research Advisory Panel (IRAP) comprising professionals from the aquaculture industry and research sectors. Four of these outputs were derived from IATS-Nutrigroup and Pathology groups research and hosted TNAs.
Project Catalogues are available for download:
Defatted yellow mealworm larvae meal
Early life management protocol
PhD student Ana Basto (CIIMAR) discussed outcomes of research from IATS-EXP TNA project INSECTFISH, focused on European sea bass feeding with mealworm Tenebrio molitor meal. The principal aim of this research was to assess the use of large quantities of insects as protein sources to replace fishmeal in diets for sea bass, and to examine possible effects on their growth and welfare. Dr. Josep Calduch-Giner presented a protocol for early life management for optimal fish performance, highlighting surprising findings in relation to low O2 (hypoxic) conditions at early life stages of gilthead sea bream and its impact later in life. In terms of fish disease, Dr. Carla Piazzon presented on gene expression analysis of Atlantic salmon gills, derived from IATS-ANA TNA project AGDBIOMAR, and how it reveals certain key molecules during amoebic gill disease, one of the main health challenges for the marine Atlantic salmon industry worldwide. It is expected that the findings could contribute to a more timely and accurate detection of the disease which will prevent stock losses and improve fish welfare. Results of this work were recently published in an Open Access publication.
In addition to the knowledge outputs, Professor Jaume Pérez-Sánchez, as AQUAEXCEL2020 WP8 leader, presented the AEFishBIT device to the audience, with a video and an exposition of latest results and applications of this patented biosensor in sea bream and sea bass. This tiny device is designed to be attached to the operculum of farmed fish for individual monitoring of their metabolic traits. The newly patented tool is the result of collaboration amongst biologists, engineers and bioinformaticians from two AQUAEXCEL2020 institutes.
After the event presentations, interactive polls with audience overall revealed a major interest in most of the presented outputs. The next and final AQUAEXCEL2020 industry brokerage event will be held at next year’s Aquaculture Europe 2020 event in Cork (Ireland), presenting the latest high-potential industry-relevant outputs that will be resulting from the final year of the project.
