Freshwater pearl culture in Mexico: historic context, present status and future perspectives

Abstract

We revise the historic context of freshwater pearl culture in Asia, updating the present situation and perspectives of this activity in Mexico, and, possibly, in some Latin American countries. The review is based on the results of ten years of research conducted in southeast Mexico (state of Tabasco) to firstly determine the demography of freshwater mussel stocks and, based on this information, identify a target species with a higher potential for pearl farming: the fatmucket mussel Psoronaias crocodilorum. The main advances relative to the seeding technique for keshi pearl production and composite technique for half-pearl (mabe) production are detailed and placed under perspective with China, as today's greatest producer of freshwater pearls. After ten years, several cohorts of keshi and mabe pearls have been produced, representing the first of their kind in Latin America. Although the yield and quality of these pearls has gradually been improved, some aspects of the keshi technique (preparation and seeding of the donor's mantle into the host's mantle) still require further optimisation. To promote social development, one of the goals of the project included the involvement of local communities in the manufacture and selling of handcrafts made from the shell. The other goal was to share the main outcomes derived from the keshi and mabe techniques with academics, producers, and government authorities through a series of training workshops aimed to create awareness in the local communities for the potential of freshwater pearl culture in Tabasco as an aquaculture-based, environmentally friendly and viable model for socioeconomic development.

Progress towards reestablishing Latin America as a major pearl producing region: A review

“…It was developed using the Akoya pearl oyster ( P. fucata ) and involves surgical implanting of a round pearl nucleus, or ‘bead’, together with nacre secreting tissue from a donor pearl oyster (called ‘saibo’), distally, into the most ventral area of the gonad mass of a host oyster. While this area is anatomically known as the ‘intestinal loop’, in pearl culture it is often referred to as the ‘pearl pocket’ 51,52 . This is a very skilled procedure performed by specialist technicians.…”

“…Following implantation, the donor tissue proliferates to enclose the bead within a continuous epithelial layer forming the ‘pearl‐sac’. Subsequent secretion of nacre from the epithelial cells of the pearl‐sac onto the bead results in cultured pearl formation after a culture period of around 2 years, when resulting pearls are harvested 1,51 …”

“…and Pinctada spp. ), 20,55–57 gastropods such as abalone, 58 and freshwater mussels 51 . Mabé pearl production is carried out in Mexico, Ecuador and Peru using Pt.…”

Research Trends of Development on Pearl Bivalve Mollusks Based on a Bibliometric Network Analysis in the Past 25 Years

“…Red algal tides (Ericson, 2017;Nakayama et al, 2020) and disease (Sakatoku et al, 2018) have resulted in the decrease of specific species, which has also occurred as a result of environmental pollution, caused by water conservancy projects, overfishing, and water contamination (Cosgrove et al, 2016). Thus, in recent years, the global production of pearls has been in decline (Johnston et al, 2019;Mao et al, 2019;Saucedo et al, 2021). According to research released in 2019 by the South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute (SCSFRI) and Australia's University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), global pearl production had fallen by 60% and output value by 39% over the past decade (Changbo et al, 2019).…”

Bromatological study of the freshwater bivalve Anodontites trapesialis (Lamarck, 1819) (Unionida, Mycetopodidae)

“…Finally, species such as Anodonta sp. have an interesting potential for producing half pearls (Mabe) and round pearls in southeastern Mexico, based on its multicolored and lustrous pattern nacre layer (Saucedo et al 2021).…”