Bulletin de l'Association aquacole du Canada 109-1 Vous pouvez recevoir le Bulletin en vous y abonnant pour la somme de 60$ par ann6e ou en devenant membre de l'Association aquacole du Canada (AAC), organisme d but non lucratif. Pour de plus amples renseignements, communiquez avec I'Association aquacole du Canada, 16 Lobster Lane, St-Andrews Q.,louveau-Brunswick), Canada E5B 3T6 [t61.: 506 529-4766; t6l6c.: 506 529-4609; courri61.: [email protected]; site Internet: http://www. aquacultureassociation.ca]. La cotisation s'6ldve d 60$ par personne (40 S pour les 6tudiants et les retrait6s) et 95$ pour les soci6t6s. Le quart de cette cotisation sert d couvrir le prix de l'abonnement at Bulletin. Le Bulletin est r6pertori6 dans l'Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA), le FISHLIT, le CAB Ab- stracts et le Zoological Record. Envoi de publication Enregistrement n' 40065445. Tout changement d'adresse doit Ctre notifr6 d l'AAC. En cas de non-livraison, pridre de retourner d 1 'AAC. Port de retour pay6. ISSN 0840-s417 Imprim6 par Taylor Printing Group Inc., Fredericton, N-B Dirigeants Tim Jackson, Pr6sident C6line Audet, Pr6sident d6sign6 Joy Wade, Vice pr6sidente Shelly King, Secr6taire Caroline Graham, Tr6sorier Membres du conseil d'administration Tillmann Benfey, Gregor Reid, Grant Vandenberg, Matthew Liutkus, Kathy Brewer-Dalton R6daction du Bulletin Susan Waddy Bulletin of the Aquaculture Association of Canada 109-1 The Bulletin is available through subscription ($60 per year) or as a benefit of membership in the Aquaculture Association of Canada, a nonprofit charitable organization. For membership information con- tact: Aquaculture Association of Canada, 16 Lobster Lane, St. Andrews, N.B., Canada E5B 3T6 [telephone 506 529-4766; fax 506 529-4609; e-mail [email protected]; website http://www.aquacultureassociation. cal. An- nual dues are $60 for individuals ($40 for students and seniors) and $95 for companies; 25 percent ofdues is designated for Bulletin subscription. The Bulletin is indexed in Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA), CAB Intemational, FISHLIT, and the Zoological Record. Mailed under Canada Post Publications Mail Commercial Sales Agreement No.40065445. Change of address notices and undelivered copies should be mailed to AAC. Return postage guaranteed. rssN 0840-5417 Printed by Taylor Printing Group Inc., Fredericton, NB Officers Tim Jackson, President C6line Audet, President-Elect Joy Wade, Vice-President Shelly King, Secretary Caroline Graham, Treasurer Directors Tillmaan Benfey, Gregor Reid, Grant Vandenberg, Matthew Liutkus, Kathy Brewer-Dalton Editor Susan Waddy (e-mail [email protected]) COvef : Created by DE Aiken from photographs of Loma morhuo spores (courtesy of Susan Balfry of the Microscopy & Microanalysis Facility, University of New Brunswick) and of an adult cod taken by Steve Neil of the St. Andrews Biological Station, Fisheries & Oceans Canada. Re search to mit i gate the neg a tive im pacts of Loma morhua on cod farming The contents of this Bul le tin rep re sent the pro ceed ings of a scien tific work shop that was hosted jointly at the St. Andrews Bi o logi cal Station of the Depart ment of Fish eries and Oceans and on the campus of the Hunts man Marine Science Centre in St. Andrews, New Bruns wick, June 24-26, 2011. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together re search sci en tists and in dus trial col lab o ra tors for pre sen ta tion of research findings and to enter tain discus sions on how best to limit the neg a tive im pact that Loma morhua is having on Atlan tic cod aquaculture. At lan tic cod is a rel a tively new spe cies to aquaculture. As with ev ery new farming endeavor, the cul ture of large num bers of or ganisms in close proxim ity to one another results in challenges due to increased po tential for infec tion by pathogens that can cause disease. Even well es tab lished en ter prises such as At lan tic salmon aquaculture face on go ing challenges with pathogens such as sea lice. It must be recog nized that it takes time to learn and un derstand the basic biol ogy of the pathogen in order to have any hope of success with prevent ing or lim iting infec tions. In addi tion, it must be appre ci ated that no sin gle approach (e.g., vacci na tion) is likely to elim inate infec tions by complex eukaryotic pathogens such as Loma morhua. Vac cines are employed commonly against vi ruses and bac teria but there are very few vac cines that show effi cacy against more com plex pathogens such as Loma morhua. Ac cordingly, we adopted a multi fac eted approach towards three main goals: 1) Limit par a site trans mission to cod at aquaculture sites us ing hus bandry-based ap proaches; 2) Iden tify cod fami lies that show ge netic re sis tance to Loma for their selec tion and use in breeding programs; 3) Identify drugs that can block or elim inate these par asite in fec tions in live fish. Loma morhua was first iden ti fied as a po ten tial prob lem for At lan tic cod aquaculture dur ing a Col lab o ra tive Re search and De vel op ment pro ject that was funded by the Nat u ral Sciences and Engi neer ing Re search Coun cil (NSERC) of Canada from 2004 to 2007. This program was spear headed by Mick Burt at the Uni versity of New Bruns wick (Fred er ic ton) in col lab o ra tion with nu mer ous spon sors as so ci ated with the Atlan tic cod aquaculture indus try. Of 23 spe cies of para sites identi fied from wild cod, Loma morhua was de termined to hold the greatest concern for the aquaculture indus try based upon >70% preva lence of infec tion observed in cod from New Bruns wick cage sites. This par a site is par tic u larly patho genic in ju ve nile fish and can 1 Bull. Aquacul. Assoc. Canada 109-1 (2011) result in near com plete stock losses in a hatchery set ting. Older fish seem to be more resil ient but show reduced growth rates and even death when sub ject to ad di tional stress ors such as el e vated wa ter tem per a tures. The research presented in this is sue of the Bul le tin was funded through the Stra te gic Pro ject Grants pro gram of NSERC with Kelly Cove Salmon (a divi sion of Cooke Aquaculture Inc.) as the indus trial sponsor. Our appli ca tion was sub mitted through a special direc tive that sought to im prove Canada’s indus trial base in the target area of aquaculture. The mandate of this funding program is to partner scien tists with indus try towards in for mation exchange in support of research that can be used to diver sify and improve the viability of the aquaculture industry. The re search on Loma morhua is on go ing and the team of in ves tiga tors includes scien tists from New Bruns wick (Mike Duffy and Tillmann Benfey, Uni versity of New Bruns wick; Ed Trippel, St. Andrews Bi o logi cal Station, Depart ment of Fish eries and Oceans) and Ontario (Lucy Lee, Wilfrid Laurier Uni ver sity; Nels Bols, Waterloo Uni ver sity), as well as re search ers in Ice land (Matthías Eydal, Uni ver sity of Ice land), Den mark (Kurt Buchmann, Uni versity of Co penha gen) and Scotland (Catherine Col lins, Fish er ies Re search Ser vices Ma rine Lab o ra tory). Nu mer ous grad u ate and un der grad u ate stu dents are in volved in con duct ing this re search (Aaron Frenette, Maeghan O’Neill, Hil ary Byrne and Nich o las Benfey from UNB; Richelle Monaghan, Mike MacLeod and Rebecca Rum ney from WLU) and we were for tunate to have the follow ing indus try repre sen tatives in at tendance at our workshop: Larry Dickinson (Cooke Aquaculture Inc.), Tasha Harrold (North ern Cod Broodstock Devel op ment) and George Nardi (Great Bay Aquaculture). Previously estab lished col lab o ra tions with the At lan tic cod in dus try are on go ing and we look for ward to the new collab o rations that were es tablished during the work shop. This issue of the Bul le tin represents an interim report of our ongoing research project that is funded until the end of 2013. Sincere thanks to our 23 partic i pants for a most pro ductive meeting in St. An drews! Mike Duffy Se nior Teach ing As so ci ate and Ad junct Pro fes sor De part ment of Bi ol ogy Uni ver sity of New Bruns wick 10 Bailey Drive Fred er ic ton, New Bruns wick E3B 5A3 Phone: (506) 453-4733 E-mail: [email protected] Bull. Aquacul. Assoc. Canada 109-1 (2011) 2 Con tents Loma morhua in At lan tic cod: Work shop pro ceed ings (St. An drews, June 24-25, 2011) Tillmann Benfey, ed i tor In tro duc tion Mike Duffy ················································1 Quan tita tive PCR: A translational tool to help elu cidate ba sic life his tory and trans mis sion dy nam ics of Loma morhua in fec tions to wards im proved fea si bil ity of cod aquaculture A Frenette, M O'Neill, H Byrne, N Benfey, E Trippel, T Benfey and M Duffy············· 4 Pre lim i nary ex per i ments to es tab lish Loma morhua in fections in naïve Atlan tic cod (Gadus morhua) M O'Neill, A Frenette, R O'Keefe, G Har ri son, S Neil, E Trippel, T Benfey and M Duffy ·······13 In vi tro cell culture for the study of Loma morhua MJ MacLeod, R Rumney, SR Monaghan, A Frenette, M Duffy and LEJ Lee············· 21 The pro duc tion of sin gle-sex and ster ile pop u la tions of At lan tic cod (Gadus morhua) for aquaculture: fish health con sid er ations with a fo cus on Loma morhua TJ Benfey, NJ Feindel, S Lin, JA Whitehead, DJ Martin-Robichaud, EA Trippel and M Duffy ·················································28 27 - 30 May 2012 Char lotte town, Prince Ed ward Is land Bull.