Post detailing meeting notes and design considerations for USDA and WSG projects from 2/5/2024.

Current Priorities

Here are the current priorities for these projects:

• Conduct secondary stressor experiment
• Prepare for recieving adults for broodstock conditioning and spawning in next 1-2 months from Neil at USDA
• Prepare for recieving new seed from Neil at USDA in late spring/early summer and prepare equipment/tank space
• Prepare to start conditioning year old seed that Niel provided last year for conditioning experiments this spring and outplanting in summer
• Work on writing Sea Grant proposal and discuss how this could complement and extend current work
• Check on oysters at Point Whitney and keep tanks clean and monitor for mortality and growth

Meeting with Neil

5 Feb 2023
Steven, Ariana, Mac, and Niel

Neil is planning to do two rounds of spawning this season - one in about 3 weeks and another later in the spring, depending on broodstock conditioning. These offspring will undergo virus phenotyping for survival against the OsHV-1 virus microvariant in collaboration with the University of Arizona. Their goal is to field deploy these offspring for field testing. They are currently outplanting to two estuary sites and are interested in expanding this to more sites if they can obtain more space for rearing in the hatchery. Currently, size at field deployment and upwelling systems for rearing are the limiting factors. They outplant at about 5 mm size.

For our grants, there are a few options for obtaining oysters from their facility in Newport, OR.

Seed: Receive thinned seed stock from spring spawning

During offspring rearing, they thin stocks at about 1-2 mm in size. These general excess seed could then be transported to us after testing and permitting for seed conditioning experiments. This generally occurs at the level of families pooled together. Depending on the logistics and output of their spawn, they could possibly keep families separated to send us seed by families. Alternatively, we could obtain pooled general population seed.

Either of these options could work within our framework and questions of interest. If we could do our experiments at the family level, we can assume genetic relatedness and characterize family-level variation in responses. At the pooled general population level, we do not have prior knowledge of genetic relatedness, but we could perform genomic work to characterize relatedness and inheritance through allele frequency approaches. Overall, we are most intersted in whether hardening works at the level of the population and how this translates to aquaculture operations. If we are able to investigate mechanisms of potential effects, we can further understand heritability and mechanisms of cross generational effects. Both appraches could work for us and will likely just depend on logistical constraints and whether it is feasible for them to separate families.

Seed: Use 1 year old seed

We have 1 year old seed at Point Whitney that was sent from Neil last year. We can start with using these for conditioning this spring and outplanting in the summer.

Adults: Receive broodstock for conditioning and spawning

There are currently no juveniles available, but we could receive adults in the next 1-2 months. These adults would be from the Miyagi population, which is a selected Northern line optimized for high yield (growth and survival). Effects of selection are hit or miss by generation in terms of improvement from wildtype/naturalized stocks.

We could obtain several individuals from multiple families to start broodstock conditioning and attempt spawning. Here, we could also use either a general population model or a family specific approach depending on spawning success.

We will need to email Neil to request adults. We could, for example, ask for 50 animals with 10 animals from each of 5 families.

References

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0044848621006839

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0044848616302022

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0044848623000649