Given the small population of aquaculture stocks, maintenance of genetic diversity is a critical issue for many aquaculture industries. Genetic diversity within a population increases its ability to sustain the population in case of disease outbreaks and environmental changes. A sufficient level of genetic diversity is also essential for long-term improvement of economically important traits.
There is also a strong need to protect existing breeding programs from epidemic diseases. For example, when the outbreak of abalone viral ganglioneuritus occurred in Victoria in 2006, the farms involved in the selective breeding program had to be destocked, resulting in the loss of breeding nucleus and more than 7 years’ effort. Had a cryopreservation program been in place to freeze gametes from selected individuals, much of the R&D effort would have been recoverable.
Gamete cryopreservation is a secure method for the ex situ preservation of genetic diversity and genetically improved materials, thus providing opportunities to reconstruct the original genetic make-up, re-establish the improved nucleus population, and establish genetic linkage among different generations and/or runs. Moreover, transporting cryopreserved gametes is relatively simple, has less chance for disease translocations as gametes are less likely to carry pathogens than whole animals, and enhances the efficiency of disseminating genetic gains to industry.
The use of specialised cryobanking facilities could potentially speed up the application of cryobanking services to the aquaculture industry. However, the suitability of standardised procedures used at these centres has not been evaluated with most aquatic species. Moreover, in aquatic species the published results show that gamete cryopreservation protocols are species specific. Therefore, these and other related issues need to be well assessed before the best or most practical option for establishing gamete cryobanking services for priority aquatic species in Australia can be recommended, and reliable and sustainable services be developed.
Final report
This workshop focused on marketing directions for the Australian oyster industry. The oyster consortium vision was to:
"Improve the profitability of Australian oyster businesses through increasing penetration of innovative and existing oyster products into new and existing markets."
The current status of the oyster industry was discussed along with marketing goals up to 2014 and marketing strategies for the next 3-5 years. For each of the 8 marketing strategies the opportunities for marketing projects were broken down into 'discovery and development' in years 1—3 and 'Action learning and piloting' in years 4-5.
The workshop was attended by representatives from the South Australian, Tasmanian and New South Wales oyster industries and representatives from the UniSA Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Services.
