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A report regarding the development of juvenile lobster production methodologies is now available
 | | A perfect juvenile |
One of the keystone issues for development of successful re-establishment or enhancement of local lobster populations is a stable and predictable production of high quality and inexpensive lobster juveniles. The lobster project supported by AquaReg has recently published a report which demonstrates that lobster juveniles can be produced in a more cost efficient and simple way than done before.
European lobsters (Homarus gammarus) are a highly prized and gastronomically appreciated marine organism. As a result of intense fishing pressure lobster landings have declined considerably in many European regions. This decrease has been particularly dramatic in the southern and northern areas of Europe. Releases of artificially raised lobster juveniles might contribute to re-establishment or enhancement of depleted lobster stocks. However, one of the key problems for successful stock enhancement has been the lack of cost effective methodologies for producing juveniles.
After the planktonic stage of their life cycle, the total length of the European lobster ranges from 1.5 to 2 cm. These small early benthic stage animals are extremely vulnerable if released directly into the sea. For this reason it is important to rear the lobsters to a length of at least 4 to 5 cm before they are released into the wild to increase their chances of survival. The purpose of the lobster project supported by AquaReg was to develop and improve existing methodologies used to produce viable lobster juveniles that are fit for release into the wild.
The methodologies that were developed to culture lobster juveniles from the first benthic stage until a suitable size for release are based either on rearing the juveniles in individual compartments suspended from mussel rafts or communally in natural seawater. Both of these culture techniques involve that the postlarval lobsters feed on naturally occurring plankton and epibiotic fouling organisms. The results demonstrate that survival to a size suitable for release is very high when rearing lobsters in suspended baskets. The lobsters also grew well both in sea cage based culture and in communal rearing, despite the fact that lobsters cultured in submerged cages in the open sea were not fed artificial feed.
The methodologies developed represents a cost-effective way of producing lobster juveniles for re-establishment or enhancement efforts, since labour expense, constructions and feeding costs are minimized and the production efficiency is high.
The report from the project is available here.
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