STAGHE

Offentlig prosjektsammendrag

In recent years, global salmon industry have been negatively impacted by a number of gill conditions, causing increased mortality and overall decline in production efficiency. As a result, gill health has emerged as the key challenge to the salmon industry. Gill health is routinely monitored by macroscopic scoring of gill arches in farms. Based in results from a previous project, it is suspected than macroscopic scores have no common underlying histopathology or molecular signature, suggesting either a lack of resolution in macro scoring or a lack of mechanistic link between scores and other parameters. In addition, it seemed to be a significant site and time signature. However, these two may be confounded, making it impossible to distinguish between spatial (location) and temporal (season) causes of variability in gill pathology. In the current project, we will attempt to unlock the mechanisms underlying the variability in gill pathology, generate novel diagnostic tools to monitor gill conditions and design functional feeds to improve gill performance in order to maintain healthy population of farmed fish, benefiting industry, consumers and environment.