|
With initial funding from the State of Maryland and from industry (Phillips Food Inc.), and with the additional federal funding provided through the Chesapeake Bay Office of NOAA, the Center of Marine Biotechnology (COMB) led the establishment of the Blue Crab Advanced Research Consortium (BCARC). This national consortium also includes the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Edgewater, Maryland, the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (GCRL), the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences (VIMS) and North Carolina State University (NCSU). The Maryland Watermen's Association and the seafood industry (Phillips Food, Inc.) are also partnering with COMB in the blue crab research program. BCARC is the first and only national research consortium addressing blue crab biology, ecology and fisheries concerns in the Chesapeake Bay and beyond.
This program was initiated in response to the sharp declines in blue crab harvests in the Chesapeake Bay over recent years. Under the leadership of UMBI's Center of Marine Biotechnology, BCARC has developed an ambitious, multidisciplinary research and development program focusing on the following objectives:
-Provide basic understanding of the blue crab biology and life cycle (reproduction, molting, ecology, behavior, etc).
-Develop reliable hatchery technologies to produce large numbers of blue crab juveniles.
Assess the potential to enhance the abundance and harvests of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay through releases of hatchery-produced juveniles.
-Develop know-how that will help manage blue crab populations in the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
-Develop aquaculture technologies for the production of soft-shell blue crabs.
Established in the summer of 2001, the BCARC has been actively working on the above objectives for over a year and has made significant progress. The main achievements during the first year of work include:
-Advanced our understanding of blue crab reproduction, early development, molting and ecology.
-Obtained spawning and hatching of millions of blue crab larvae all year round.
-Developed detailed protocols for blue crab larval rearing.
-Obtained exceptionally high survival rates from hatch to post-larval stages- 48%.
-Studied ways to reduce cannibalism throughout the developmental process of blue crab juveniles.
-Based on the above studies, obtained very high survival rates of blue crab juveniles: 58% from post-larvae to approximately 1 inch in size.
-Produced over 40,000 blue crab juveniles (0.5-1.5 inches in size) in two months from the time of hatching.
 -Individually tagged and experimentally released over 25,000 juvenile crabs to the Chesapeake Bay.
-Monitored released crabs for up to 14 weeks after release.
-Obtained many novel results on the ecology, survival and behavior of the blue crabs in the wild.
-Released hatchery crabs grew to 5 inches in size and reached maturity at the age of six months. This means that our released crabs are quickly ready to contribute to the spawning stocks in the wild.
-Obtained promising initial results on the potential of using hatchery crabs to increase the wild blue crab stocks.
-Obtained mating of our own blue crab offspring in captivity. This has never been done before in hatchery conditions.
Based on the early success and the high productivity of the BCARC, the consortium's research will be extended to achieve the following goals:
-Develop molecular techniques and other tools to further our understanding of the hormonal regulation of reproduction, growth and development, molting, aggression, feeding, ecology, habitat requirement, behavior and disease processes in the blue crab.
-Optimize brood production and spawning of captive blue crabs.
-Optimize hatchery technologies for the predictable and reliable production of large numbers of juvenile blue crabs.
-Transfer the hatchery technologies to industry (Watermen).
-Develop genetic (DNA) tagging technologies for hatchery-produced blue crab juveniles.
-Expand our juvenile "release and monitor" studies to multiple locations around the Chesapeake Bay and its blue crab recruitment range (to include Virginia and N. Carolina).
-Determine the contribution of juvenile releases to blue crab abundance and fisheries in the Chesapeake Bay.
-Continue the development of year-round production of soft-shell crabs.
For additional details please contact:
Dr. Yonathan Zohar
Director and Professor
Center of Marine Biotechnology
University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute
|
