May 18, 2016

Secret sex life of black tiger prawn unlocked

A study is trying to discover the secrets of how the giant black tiger prawn produces sperm and transfers it to create the next generation, and says this could help free aquaculture from reliance on brood stock from the wild.

Tianyi Feng, a doctoral student at the University of Queensland School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, is using advanced microscopes to create three-dimensional computer models of the prawn sperm cells, richly illustrating their composition.

"Although the seafood industry is a multibillion-dollar industry internationally, there's a lot we still don't understand about the basic biology of valuable prawns such as these", Mr Feng said.

"If we knew more, we could probably improve the efficiency of prawn breeding in aquaculture," he added.

Feng said farmed prawns did not always mature well sexually in captivity and that it was important that they should be as fertile as possible. The Asian prawn aquaculture industry has experienced significant setbacks from wild prawn diseases introduced by wild-caught brood stock.

"We're hoping to improve the knowledge of prawn sperm production using advanced techniques to assess sperm damage, such as DNA fragmentation, which is a cause of infertility in other species", Feng said.