This project will enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. aquaculture industry by bringing to fruition seven years of prior work that has resulted in the creation of a genetically diverse founder populations of F1 through F3 performance striped bass, improved reproductive techniques and a comprehensive set of microsattellite DNA markers. We will accelerate the commercial application of our work by : (1) exchanging and crossbreeding broodstock between three leading facilities to safeguard genetic resources and to enlarge the effective population size available for breeding, (2) breeding and rearing large numbers of and domestic, select striped bass families for further selection for enhanced production and growth performance, (3) undertaking commercial-scale performance trials of striped bass and hybrid striped bass in tank and pond environments, (4) utilizing genotyping to track the pedigree of the best- performing progeny for selection, and (5) preserving striped bass semen as a means of safeguarding irreplaceable genetic resources. The combination of large-scale breeding evaluation trials, pedigree tracking and selection will enable us to retain commercially significant number of broodstock while exerting a high selection differential. The participation of multiple laboratories, experiment stations and industry will ensure the relevance of results and set the stage for supplying fish breeders with superior germplasm.
