Productivity benefits of selectively breeding Black Tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) in Australia

Abstract

Advances in the domestication and selective breeding of Australian Black Tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon, opens the opportunity for world producers to reconsider the benefits of farming this species. Just over a decade ago this species was the world's most farmed shrimp species, however, difficulty in its domestication, in part, led to the widespread establishment of Penaeus vannamei (Pacific White shrimp) as the most farmed shrimp species in the world. This study empirically evaluates the productivity benefits of commercially domesticating P. monodon against production from wild broodstock of the same species. The evaluation compared the relative production from commercial ponds stocked with the progeny of wild P. monodon broodstock and ponds stocked with the progeny of domesticated stocks. The production data were from 164 ponds of domesticated stocks and 30 ponds of wild stocks, collected over 4 years (2009–2013) from two separate farm sites of the same Australian shrimp farming company. The wild stocks were sourced from the east coast of Australia. The results suggested that the productivity of the selectively bred stocks was 39% greater compared with production from wild stocks given equivalent amounts of feed and other inputs. Furthermore, productivity was additionally enhanced depending on the choice of feeds and whether stocking took place in September rather than later in the year (i.e. in early spring rather than late spring/early summer in the Southern hemisphere). This suggests that there is significant potential to further enhance the productivity of P. monodon farms via integrating advances in domestication, feeds and management practices.

Development and validation of a RAD-Seq target-capture based genotyping assay for routine application in advanced black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) breeding programs

“…While producing a current global production of 713,318 metric tonnes per annum [17], the industry stands to benefit greatly from developing genetic tools to manage existing breeding programs more effectively, and furthermore, facilitate a transition to genomic based breeding programs (i.e. genomic selection [18][19][20][21];). While efforts have been undertaken to develop a range of genomic markers (e.g.…”

Spermatogenesis and sperm assessment in the Black Tiger Prawn, Penaeus monodon

“…Despite being the second largest farmed prawn species worldwide, the reproductive cycle of Penaeus monodon has rarely been closed in domestication as reliably as that of its global seafood market competitor, Litopenaeus vannamei (Norman-Lόpez et al, 2016). For decades, efforts have been made to improve the reproductive performance of P. monodon broodstock in the aquaculture hatchery with a prioritized focus on the female perspective .…”

“…Aquaculture has been so far the only way to maintain the per capita prawn consumption for the expanding world's human population and economy as fishery production is restrained by the limited productivity of ecosystems and effectiveness of their management (Merino et al, 2012). Prawn farming is strongly regulated in Australia but when not well managed overseas (Norman-Lόpez et al, 2016), the activities of prawn farming has put existing fishery stocks in danger with respect to the destruction of natural habitat by building farms in the mangrove estuaries or unsustainable trawling for wild broodstock, contamination from waste disposal and invasions of exotic competitors and pathogens, and the depletion of other fish resources to produce commercial prawn feed (Naylor et al, 2000).…”

“…Medina, 1995;Medina et al, 1994), no specific report has been published on the ultrastructure of Penaeus monodon spermatozoa, except for a brief description of the spermatozoon during observations of acrosome reaction (Pongtippatee et al, 2007). Given the importance of P. monodon to the Australian and world prawn aquaculture industry (Norman-Lόpez et al, 2016) and the inefficiency of current sperm assessments , this lack of basic sperm morphological description is surprising, as such information provides the basis for assessments of male fertility and for evaluating the effect of testicular perturbation and procedures associated with sperm preservation.…”

“…Difficulty in its domestication has been a major reason limiting the expansion of P. monodon aquaculture (Briggs et al, 2005). While current research in the selective breeding of P. monodon domesticated broodstock has made significant progresses in the area of nauplii productivity (Norman-Lόpez et al, 2016), there unfortunately has been a corresponding decline in terms of reproductive performance when successive generations are bred in captivity (Arnold et al, 2013). While the impact of domestication on female broodstock includes reduced maturation success, a lower egg production,, and a decline in the hatching rate (Coman et al, 2006), the impact of domestication on male reproduction is still uncertain, as the sperm number found in the spermatophore and rate of acrosome reaction of these spermatozoa does not appear to be impaired (Arnold et al, 2013).…”