Genomic research to improve cleaner fish performance, welfare and efficiency at delousing salmon

基因组研究可提高清洁鱼的性能、福利和除虱鲑鱼的效率

• 批准号: 2601632
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Stirling
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2601632
• 关键词: Genomic; research; improve; cleaner; fish

Aquaculture contributes more than £1.8bn to the UK economy every year and supports over 8,800 livelihoods - many in remote communities. Farmed Scottish salmon is the most valuable farmed food export in the UK. Industry and Government have strong aspirations for growth (from 162,817t in 2016 to >300,000t by 2030, Marine Scotland Science and Aquaculture growth to 2030, Scotland Food and Drink) to meet increasing market demands. However, considerable pressures are being experienced by the farming sector because of emergency harvests due to disease outbreaks and losses and concerns over the sustainability of the sector. The greatest disease threat challenging salmon aquaculture is the infection by caligid sea lice (salmon louse Lepeophtheirus salmonis and the sea louse Caligus elongatus). These parasites feed on the skin, mucous, and blood, leading to skin erosion, physical damage, osmoregulatory failure, increased disease incidence, stress, and immunosuppression. Sea lice is thought to cost the Scottish salmon sector in excess of £50m and £700m globally.To mitigate the effect of these parasites, the use of cleaner fish (that forage on lice) has become a promising biological control solution to manage sea lice infections in commercial Atlantic salmon farming. Particularly the use of two cleaner fish species, ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta) and lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) have gained importance, but the use of wild caught fish has raised significant concerns over the sustainability of this practice. Recently, the life cycle of both species has been closed in captivity offering great opportunities for domestication and improvement programs to make this unique pest management strategy more effective and sustainable. Genomic resources remain limited for both cleaner fish species although recent efforts have been made with the recent publication of the first genome assembly for both cleaner fish species. Having that in consideration, next-generation sequencing and high-throughput genotyping technologies are called to play a fundamental role in the development of genomic resources such as the identification of thousands of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in relation to important traits. The availability of genomic markers such as SNPs will facilitate the domestication of cleaner fish species and improvement of commercially important traits (e.g. growth, feed efficiency, disease resistance, survival, delousing) but also provide a better understanding of the genetic structure and diversity of the captive and farmed populations. In addition, the strong physiological differences between both species in performances (lumpsucker growing too fast as opposed to ballan wrasse growing too slow), behaviour, disease susceptibility, environmental tolerance provide an interesting comparative approach. This project aims to develop genomic resources for both ballan wrasse and lumpfish and utilize these for the understanding of the genomic architecture behind important economic traits. The project intends to identify quantitative trait loci and genetic markers associated to growth, disease resistance, delousing behaviour and robustness and the study of population genetics. The prospective student will join a team of leading academics in the field based at the Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling and The Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh and will acquire expertise in breeding, health, genomics and bioinformatics. The project will take advantage of commercial scale experiments already planned in 2021-2022 as part of current BBSRC/NERC funded AQUALEAP project (BB/S004416/1 and BB/S004343/1) awarded to UoS and UoE, respectively) and KTP project awarded to UoS looking at lumpsucker and wrasse population genetics, growth and disease resistance. The student will be in charge of performing sampling of cleaner fish populations across the UK at commercial partners facilities including phenotyping and genotyping. RAD-seq li

Aquarium每年为英国经济贡献超过18亿英镑，支持8,800多项生计，其中许多在偏远社区。养殖的苏格兰鲑鱼是英国最有价值的养殖食品出口。工业和政府对增长有强烈的愿望（从2016年的162，817吨到2030年的300，000吨，苏格兰海洋科学和水产养殖增长到2030年，苏格兰食品和饮料），以满足不断增长的市场需求。然而，由于疾病爆发和损失造成紧急收成，以及对农业部门可持续性的关切，农业部门正面临相当大的压力。挑战鲑鱼水产养殖的最大疾病威胁是海虱（鲑鱼虱Lepeophtheirus salmonis和海虱Caligus elongatus）的感染。这些寄生虫以皮肤、粘液和血液为食，导致皮肤糜烂、身体损伤、免疫调节失败、疾病发病率增加、压力和免疫抑制。海虱被认为是苏格兰鲑鱼部门的成本超过5000万英镑和全球7亿英镑。为了减轻这些寄生虫的影响，使用清洁鱼（以虱子为食）已成为一种有前途的生物控制解决方案，以管理大西洋鲑鱼商业养殖中的海虱感染。特别是使用两种清洁鱼类，巴兰隆头鱼（Labrus bergylta）和圆鳍鱼（Cyclopterus lumpus），已经获得了重要性，但使用野生捕获的鱼类引起了人们对这种做法可持续性的严重关切。最近，这两个物种的生命周期已被封闭在圈养提供了很大的机会，驯化和改进计划，使这种独特的害虫管理策略更有效和可持续。两种清洁鱼类的基因组资源仍然有限，尽管最近已经做出了努力，最近出版了两种清洁鱼类的第一个基因组组装。考虑到这一点，下一代测序和高通量基因分型技术被要求在基因组资源的开发中发挥基础作用，例如鉴定与重要性状相关的数千个单核苷酸多态性（SNP）。基因组标记，如SNPs的可用性将促进更清洁的鱼类品种的驯化和商业上重要的性状（如生长，饲料效率，抗病性，生存，除虱）的改善，但也提供了一个更好的理解的遗传结构和多样性的圈养和养殖种群。此外，这两个物种在性能（圆鳞鱼生长太快，而巴兰濑鱼生长太慢），行为，疾病易感性，环境耐受性之间的强烈生理差异提供了一个有趣的比较方法。本计画旨在开发巴兰隆头鱼与圆鳍鱼的基因组资源，并利用这些资源来了解重要经济性状背后的基因组结构。该项目旨在确定与生长、抗病、除虱行为和健壮性有关的数量性状基因座和遗传标记，并研究种群遗传学。未来的学生将加入斯特林大学水生生物研究所和爱丁堡大学罗斯林研究所的该领域领先学者团队，并将获得育种，健康，基因组学和生物信息学方面的专业知识。该项目将利用已经计划在2021-2022年进行的商业规模实验，作为目前BBSRC/NERC资助的AQUALEAP项目（BB/S 004416/1和BB/S 004343/1）的一部分，分别授予UoS和UoE）和授予UoS的KTP项目，研究圆吸盘鱼和濑鱼种群遗传学，生长和抗病性。该学生将负责在商业合作伙伴的设施，包括表型和基因分型，在英国各地进行清洁鱼类种群的采样。RAD-seq li