A new project will create tiger prawns that grow faster and are disease-resistant in the hopes of establishing the world’s largest and most sustainable tiger prawn farm.
Image: James Cook University
Prawns, alongside other Australian seafood, are becoming an increasingly popular culinary choice around the world. Now scientists from James Cook University are working with the latest genetic techniques to make them cheaper and easier to farm in order to keep up with the demand.
A team of researchers led by Professor Dean Jerry is working to unlock the genetic secrets of the black tiger prawn (Penaeus monodon) so that breeders can use the information to develop strains that grow faster and resist disease.
The newly funded program is known as “Unleashing the Tiger".
“There have been decades of struggling to expand in an exceedingly regulated and high-cost economy and reach the critical mass where the industry can support an efficient industrial-scale selective breeding program,” said Professor Jerry in a press release.
“In essence, Unleashing the Tiger will produce a farmed prawn that will be the most efficient and sustainable to farm globally, while producing a product with quality attributes that the whole world will want to buy and consume.”
While in the past genetic breeding practices, which involve studying desirable traits in individuals and then amplifying them through breeding, have been used to transform livestock and crop farming, this is one of the first projects that will assist aquaculture species.
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