In 2000, the main focus of the COMES Aquaculture program at HMSC was the USDA-funded Molluscan Broodstock Program (MBP). This purpose of this program is to develop superior oyster broodstock for the West Coast shellfish industry. About 400 families of Pacific oysters have been produced. Research assistants Sean Matson, John Brake and crew have planted these families at commercial test sites along the West Coast, from Prince William Sound, Alaska, to Tomales Bay, California.

The top performing families from the test site in Tomales Bay were used as broodstock in spring 1998 to produce a second generation of MBP families that were planted in Washington and Oregon. The performance of this second MBP generation, compared to that of offspring from non-selected oysters, indicates that oyster yield is a strongly heritable trait and that MBP's approach should lead to significant improvements through genetic selection. Selected MBP families were used in several commercial hatcheries in 2000 to produce millions of seed for large-scale evaluation. The oyster industry continues to be very supportive of MBP.

Graduate student Ford Evans is studying interactions between environment and genetic expression of growth and survival of oyster families. It is important to be able to identify MBP families for commercial hatcheries that perform well across a wide range of environments.

Last year, Anja Robinson has worked with a commercial grower to evaluate the potential of the Alsea Bay for shellfish culture. Recently, this bay has been certified for shellfish culture in an attempt to broaden the economic base of the coastal community of Walport. Despite a slow start, preliminary results are promising; however, there is some local opposition to planting oysters in Alsea for either commercial or restoration purposes.

Cultured live phytoplankton feeds for shellfish are expensive and time-consuming to produce. With support from the Markham Foundation, graduate student Ebru Onal has evaluated a new inexpensive commercial product, consisting of spray-dried, heterotrophically-cultured algae, as a complete replacement or supplement for living algae in diets for Manila clams. Results indicate that a high proportion of a living algal diet can be replaced with the spray-dried product without reduction in clam growth.

Abalone aquaculture has great commercial potential in Oregon, providing an alternative to kelp can be found as a suitable abalone food. Research of graduate student Carl Demetropoulos (supported by Oregon Sea Grant and donations from a private abalone company) has focused on optimizing the culture of dulse (Palmaria mollis) as a food for abalone. This OSU-developed technology is being used in a multi-million dollar, start-up abalone farm in Hawaii. A joint patent application between OSU and the Hawaiian farm for a fast growing strain of dulse was approved by the U.S. patent office in winter 2000.

Graduate student Blaine Griffen has been working on a joint project with Ted DeWitt of HMSC/EPA to study the feeding physiology of mud shrimp. Mud shrimp are very abundant in Oregon's estuaries and Blaine has shown that they have a major impact on phytoplankton concentrations due to their suspension-feeding activities. Their burrowing activities are also responsible for huge losses of shellfish habitat in Oregon's estuaries as mud shrimp soften the substrate, burying oysters and clams.

On the West Coast, rearing commercially important marine species, such as sable fish, in offshore cages or in land-based systems may become increasingly important in meeting our food demands, as natural fish stocks decline and fishing becomes more limited. Rearing marine fish larvae is very difficult and satisfactory artificial feeds will be important for the development of marine fish aquaculture on the West Coast, U.S. The Markham Foundation supported research of graduate student Umur Onal on microparticulate feeds for marine fish larvae. He has developed several novel particle types that show a lot of promise.