SALTAS is the home of the Tasmanian Atlantic Salmon selective breeding program (SBP). This small industry owned company located in the Derwent Valley runs 2 freshwater hatcheries and is responsible for the production of the majority of the broodstock for the industry. The Tasmanian SBP has been in operation since 2005 and has been providing genetically improved eggs and smolt for commercial production to the shareholders since 2012. The genetically improved stocks that have been sent to sea already have performed beyond expectations and as such there is now greater concern for the biological protection of the breeding program, and the commercial gains that it is providing to the Tasmanian industry.

In 2013, SALTAS has embarked upon a strategy to continually upgrade biological protection of the SBP and as such it is essential that key staff are able to become exposed to worlds best practice approaches to biosecurity. The opportunity for Mr Hilder to travel to Canada during their spawning season in November would allow him to see first hand, the approach taken to protect valuable broodstock in an environment where the disease threats are more real and immediate than those here in Tasmania.

This travel bursary application is to attend the 36th annual larval fish conference to be held in Bergen, Norway (2-6 July 2012). The purpose of the conference is to communicate the current state of knowledge around larval fish biology and ecology. Theme sessions focus on mortality in the early life stages of fishes and the contribution of mechanistic behavioural and physiological studies on fish larvae.

The presentation I intend to deliver is 'The effect of ocean warming on the early life history of Latris lineata inferred through a lagrangian bio-physical dispersal model', which fits well into the conference themes. The study species, striped trumpeter is an iconic fish and a popular target of both commercial and recreational fishers. Over 25 years the population has displayed marked recruitment variability. It is thought that this erratic recruitment is due to variability in the success of the early life stages. By combining biological information with oceanographic models we have been able to model the dispersal and survival of this critical life history. We also ran climate change scenarios that predicted the effect of temperature on the survival of this early life stage.

This modelling is likely to develop further into the future, with interest from researchers working on scallops, blue grenadier, southern rock lobster, snapper and long spined sea urchin. By attending the conference I will be able to develop the model further to implement world standard procedures that are realised by discussion and observation of presentations from world leaders in this field.

In FRDC 2007/007 and FRDC 2009/044, it was determined that ornamental fish entering Australia are a source of exotic pathogens, such as cyprinid herpesvirus 2 (CyHV2). This is of particular relevance for goldfish, where domestic breeders claim that their stock succumb to CyHV2 disease when brought into contact with imported goldfish in wholesale and retail premises. CyHV2 only affects goldfish and was addressed in the 1999 IRA as being exotic to Australia. Recent research findings from FRDC 2009/044 indicated that CyHV2 is present in domestic Australian goldfish populations. On 1 September 2011, Biosecurity Australia amended the health certification requirements for the importation of goldfish and no longer requires fish to be certified free of CyHV2.

The detection of CyHV2 and other exotic aquatic pathogens (e.g. gourami iridovirus) was achieved through the application of molecular techniques, such as PCR. Correctly applied and interpreted, molecular approaches offer unique opportunities to understand the local and global spread of a disease. The advancement of molecular approaches is required to safeguard Australia against pathogen incursions through the processes of informed policy development and import risk analysis.

There is a need to disseminate the research that determined that CyHV2 is now established in Australia and how scientific evidence was used to change national biosecurity policy to the international scientific community. There is also a need to ensure the availability of people with specialised training in molecular epidemiology in Australia to stay at the forefront of the application of this technology.

This application is for an international bursary to attend a two week intensive course on next generation sequencing.

The course, held by Michigan University, will cover all aspects of bioinformatics analysis needed for transcriptomes and genome sequencing, as well as train in the analysis of sequences the course participants bring themselves.

At USC we have moved into the field of transcriptome and genome sequencing, and now have transcriptomes of 8 prawn tissues, pearl oyster, 2 fish tissues, and we are about to embark on sea cucumber and edible oyster sequencing, as well as tuna genomics. While capable of doing the basic analysis, this resource offers much more, and this course would train me for such analysis.

There are not many groups in Australia doing wide genome analysis of aquaculture species, and this training and materials provided in the course would put me in a position to not only service my FRDC and CRC grant industry partners, but also to train interested parties in Australia who are interested in expanding into this field. USC is investing in building up its aquaculture genetics portfolio, and this training opportunity would add to the strength of the group.

Elizur would extend her knowledge gained in this travel to the aquaculture community through lectures at a CRC or industry forums where there is potential for uptake. She will communicate with the CRC about opportunities to present to the student forum where molecular approaches could be adopted to address some of the research questions.

This travel bursary application is to attend a 3-day workshop, ““Data Management and Local Knowledge: Building a Network to Support Community-Based Research and Monitoring" to be held in Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A, on November 15, 16, 17, 2011. The purpose of the workshop is to bring together researchers, industry and community members, organizations, and projects working on issues surrounding data management for both Local and Traditional Knowledge (LTK) and information from community and industry-based research and monitoring. They are interested in projects and initiatives that work with LTK and are addressing data management issues in some way – from asking questions about how we can archive our data and information for future generations, to fully operational data management systems. The organisers have written to invite me to attend (pdf attached) in order to exchange experiences and information on how we can better gather, utilise and acknowledge important information that is held within our marine industries and communities.

Formally incorporating fisher knowledge into our assessment and management frameworks has never been so critical. Fishers need to alter what they do in response to marine ecosystem changes (i.e. adaptation), yet many fishers do not acknowledge climate change or trust traditional scientific information about climate change. We need platforms that collect and display information fishers trust -their own industry information.