Large-scale study focuses on fish health and welfare
A five-year partnership with industry will consider how to limit the impact of disease in salmon production.
An £8.5m, large-scale research partnership seeks to improve the welfare and productivity of farmed salmon in Scotland.
In a project led by the Roslin Institute partnered with the UK’s largest salmon farmer Mowi Scotland, experts will seek to understand how to limit the impact of chronic complex diseases, enabling better health and welfare.
The team will use a range of approaches and technologies to improve resilience to disease throughout the salmon lifecycle.
They will establish a world-leading framework to identify regions of the salmon genome associated with complex diseases, using this knowledge to support breeding of healthy stocks.
Their project, funded through the BBSRC Business and Academia Prosperity Partnership programme, aims to limit the welfare and economic cost associated with disease in a key livestock sector.
The team will focus on fish heart and gill health, using detailed studies of the species’ DNA code, genes linked to key traits, and research into the immune system to improve resilience to disease throughout the fish lifecycle.
The team will track hundreds of salmon families across the full production cycle, focusing on key areas, including seeking to understand the diversity of genomes, the impact of early rearing practices and developing novel characteristics to select the most robust fish from the breeding population.
Scientists will investigate how the rearing temperature during early development of fish impacts the link between disease, immunity and response to vaccination. They will also develop novel ways to separately measure disease resistance, tolerance and infectivity as traits for robustness.
The five-year project, involving research on the first dedicated Scottish salmon breeding population, will be bolstered by recruitment of key research posts, bidirectional career development support, and a programme of community engagement to raise awareness of their research among the public.
“The scientific objectives outlined are highly strategically relevant and deliver immediate translational opportunities to salmon production benefit the Scottish, UK and global salmon farming sectors, further increasing animal welfare, profitability, sustainability, and societal acceptance.”
“We seek to advance the fundamental understanding of fish health and robustness at multiple levels across the salmon life cycle, a proposal only possible through such a large-scale partnership with industry.”
** The Roslin Institute receives strategic investment funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and it is part of the University of Edinburgh’s Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. **
For further information, please contact:
Roslin Institute
The University of Edinburgh
Easter Bush Campus
Midlothian, EH25 9RG
Reception
T: +44 (0)131 651 9100