It is the continuation of the Ocimer project, which allowed the repopulation of overexploited areas with 50,000 juveniles
Between 2019 and 2021, the University of Vigo and the San Xosé de Cangas fishermen’s guild worked on a project to improve the cultivation of the sea urchin, Paracentrotus lividus, with funding from the Pleamar program of Fundación Biodiversidad.Its aim was to implement new optimized techniques for the cultivation and repopulation of sea urchins as well as the recovery of the populations of overexploited areas. As a result of this work, the research team, led by the director of Ecimat, José Manuel García Estévez, obtained 50,000 specimens with which last summer they repopulated an area of the coast of Cangas do Morrazo. Now, half a year later, CIM researchers will be able to continue this study under the Ocimer+ project, an eight-month extension of the original project, also funded by the Pleamar program, which the incorporation to the team of the San Francisco Fishermen’s Guild of Vigo.
The Marine Science Station of Toralla hosted this Friday the presentation of this new project, which aims to obtain key information for the proper development of the culture and for the management and conservation of this species. Ocimer+ presents an integrative approach that addresses “aspects of nutrition, genetics, health and cryopreservation, as well as the study of the behavior of the species in the face of changes caused by climate change.” As explained by the project manager, Sira Pereira, the aim is to “continue the actions related to cultivation and cryopreservation”, which were addressed in the previous project, but adding two new lines of research: pathology and genetics. The project will run until October and involves several research groups from the UVigo Marine Research Center that will focus on five species of sea urchins present in the Vigo ria.
The specific objectives are to obtain information on pathologies and parasitic diseases in the sea urchin; assess the level of genetic diversity and reproductive isolation of five species of sea urchins that live on the Galician coasts; determine the optimal parameters in the larval settlement phase of P. lividus, implement fattening diets that increase its gonadal index as well as its marketing period in Galicia, and promote the conservation of native species of Galicia by cryopreservation, susceptible to reproduction in captivity. They will also work on the assessment of the state of the repopulated populations in the previous project and on the continuity of the collaboration in the management of populations in danger of overexploitation with the fishermen’s guilds of the Vigo ria.
A project committed to direct transfer to the sector
The director of Ecimat, José Manuel García Estévez, and the director of the Atlantic Islands National Park, José Antonio Fernández Bouzas, took part in the presentation. The former, the project’s principal investigator, emphasized the research and transfer capabilities of Ecimat and CIM and recalled that “all the benefits of the oceans can only be maintained if they are kept healthy, and this means knowing how they work, to understand how they are affected by human activities and to establish management measures based on scientific criteria ”. It is in this vision that Ocimer+ fits, a project that, he stressed, “represents a commitment of researchers to the public” to transfer knowledge to society and productive sectors, something that also highlighted Fernández Bouzas, who stressed that it is “a real project, transferable, integrative and that seeks to give solutions to an actual problem ”, which is the conservation and sustainability of this species. He pointed out that last week in Aguiño the sea urchin was sold at € 15.60 EUR/ kg and this may mean that the guilds are committed to “reducing quotas to preserve these prices”, which would be good news for this resource, which is at risk of overexploitation. The head of the national park also stressed an aspect of the project that he considers essential, which is to have a biobank of this species to deal, for example, with an ecological catastrophe, such as a spill, which would require a repopulation of specimens.
Following the presentation of the initiative, the project work packages were detailed, one by one. Sira Pereira, project management technician, provided an overview of the project, and said that a fairly comprehensive sampling plan is planned, with a field campaign per month between March and July, in which adults and juvelniles will be sampled. The first sampling took place this week in Cíes, Cangas, Berbés and the Toralla area.
Ocimer vs Ocimer+
The head of the Biological Resources and Marine Cultures Unit of Ecimat-CIM, Damián Costas, took stock of the results of the initial project, Ocimer, and also advanced some of the actions that will be carried out in this new stage. He stressed that the already completed part of the research allowed to standardize the larval culture of the sea urchin, with a survival rate above 50% and reaching up to 76%. In this field, work has also been done on optimizing culture parameters and the effects of climate change, with tests related to temperature, salinity, pH, light, diet, etc. In this new stage, the researchers will perform “experiments in extreme conditions of these parameters in order to specify the range within which the Paracentrotus lividus could survive” and will do so not only with larvae, but also with recruits, as indicated by Damián Costas.
Another area in which progress will be made will be pre-fattening. If in the first stage they worked on the manufacture and testing of experimental feeds, now they will try to improve these products, so that they keep their properties in good condition as long as possible, thus maximizing the growth of specimens up to release size. In addition, the aim was to “design specific diets that allow high values of the gonadal index to be obtained in the summer”, which would allow the marketing of this fresh species in the summer months, as so far the season ends in April. In addition, after the repopulation campaign with 50,000 individuals last summer, another similar experiment will be carried out again, and progress will also be made with cryopreservation activities.
The presentation day was completed with the intervention of Fabio Fernández, research technician in Parasitology. He addressed the animal health status of sea urchin populations, while Marina Parrondo analyzed the genetic characterization of the most common sea urchin species in Galicia. The presentation was closed by doctoral student Sara Campos, who went into the cryopreservation of native species.
Source: DUVI
