The development of fast growing, late maturing and salinity tolerant strains of Arctic charr

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Aquaculture is recognized as a growing source of employment and offers the possibility for social and economic improvements in communities with limited industrial alternatives. Canadian aquaculture is considered to have entered its "second phase" as an industry and to remain competitive, it will have to develop new species for commercial cultivation. Arctic charr is an excellent intensive culture species that has a cold water requirement. While cultured charr commands a high price, global production is limited by these cold water restrictions. Therefore, the supply of charr is not expected to meet the growing demand and market prices should remain at a premium. Because of its geography and climate, Canada has the potential to account for the majority of the world's production of charr. A major impediment to the expansion of Arctic charr farming is the inconsistent availability to fish farms of high quality fish with well-defined production parameters. One step that would facilitate the growth and competitiveness of the Canadian Arctic charr industry is the selection of strains that exhibit economically important traits such as fast growth, reduced early maturation, and increased salinity tolerance using state of the art genomic tools. As such, an ongoing project supported by Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency/ Atlantic Innovation Fund (AIF) aims to provide the molecular genetic information that will increase the efficiency of artificial selection and breeding programs when combined with traditional quantitative genetic methods. This NSERC CRD project proposes to use leveraged funds to add a value added component that will capitalize on existing efforts of the AIF project. The objectives of the CRD project are to (1) develop of genomic resources for Arctic charr and (2) apply those genomic resources in the selective breeding programs of our industrial partners and collaborators. Specifically, the leveraged funds will be used to update the genotyping methodology thus increasing resolution and potential for application to the Canadian Arctic charr industry. This effort will also provide enhanced training of a PhD student in state of the art methods used in fish breeding.