SBIR-STTR Award

The proposed project seeks to identify superior strains and families of white bass for aquaculture by evaluating the progeny of three wild strains collected from a broad geographic range. The collections will be designed to evaluate the performance of genetically distinct strains. In order to control for the effect of family differences, five families will be collected from each of the strains and their performance will be compared and evaluated. The strains will be reared in triplicate in a recirculating aquaculture facility under the same environmentally controlled conditions for twenty four weeks. Comparisons will be made between strains for the following performance characteristics: growth rate, uniformity of growth, feed conversion efficiency, survival, and dress-out percentage. Representatives of individual families and strains will be identified by DNA microsatellite analysis (genetic tags) using primer pairs developed for Morone species. Genetic tags will permit identification of the largest fish by their parentage before they are selected at the end of the project for potential future breeding. As a control, a subset of each family will be individually PIT tagged, and their performance will serve as a comparison to the genetically identified and selected largest fish.Applications:The identification of superior genetic strains of white bass offers one of the most rapid and cost effective means of improving performance of production stocks of hybrid striped bass. Identified superior strains are expected to be immediately useful as broodstock for the hybrid striped bass industry. Phase II's objective is to hybridize F1 selected white bass and striped bass individuals for commercial grow-out and demonstration of gains made by this strain selection and hybridization program. The novel application of DNA technology for aquaculture genetics in this program is expected to lower the cost of a selective breeding program by 90%.

Phase I project results showed significant growth differences between strains and families of white bass. We also demonstrated the ability to use microsattelite DNA markers (genetic tags) to trace the family origin of communally reared fish. Building on these results, we propose to improve the performance of white bass broodstock and hybrid striped bass progeny through three sub-projects (i) expand the genetic base for selection with supplemental collections of the top performing white bass strains, (ii) crossbreed the best growing individuals from top performing families and strains identified in Phase I, and (iii) cross selected, white bass females with striped bass males to evaluate the performance of hybrid striped bass produced from the superior performing broodstock identified in this project. The use of genetic tags will allow us to reconstruct the pedigree of individuals reared in common environments. This genetic improvement strategy, known as "walk-back" selection, will allow us to cross the best performing unrelated pairs from a large population, thereby maximizing selection-intensity within multiple families, while reducing the risk of inbreeding. The cost of this type of program is estimated at just 10% of the cost of running a conventional breeding program. Through these initiatives we aim to exploit additive and non-additive genetic variance in a selective breeding program for improving hybrid striped bass growth rates.Applications:At the conclusion of Phase II, we anticipate being able to demonstrate a 20-30% improvement in growth (days to weight) in our domesticated, cross-bred, white bass strain. We expect to demonstrate a similar gain in production trials with hybrid striped bass. Finally, we will create a foundation and the tools (Microsatellites) for achieving continuing improvements in growth and other commercially important production characteristics. This project will generate significant value for the industry and is expected to become self funding via a reduction in production costs. The microsatellite primer sequences developed in this project could be used by others to optimize genetic diversity in hatcheryMorone broodstock and as tools to manage wild stocks of white bass and striped bass. Finally, this project could become a model for selective breeding programs for other aquaculture species.