Natural products and Bioactives research at NIWA
Aquaculture of a sponge for bioactives
Something good from toxic blooms
Replacing bad bugs with good bugs
The team
Enabling our Aquaculture Research
Lobster recirculation systems
Recirculation – the way forward for paua
Northland - a region with aquaculture potential
Probiotics have been defined as ‘a mono- or mixed-culture of live microorganisms that, applied to animal or man, affect beneficially the host by improving the properties of the indigenous microflora’.
Basically, there are good bacteria and bad bacteria. Probiotics is the use of good bacteria to exclude or replace bad bacteria. A common form of this principle is the use of yogurt to control thrush in human beings. At NIWA we are developing probiotics for use in the aquaculture industry.
Globally, aquaculture is expanding rapidly.
Recirculating seawater facilities are commonly used by rock lobster fishers and processors to hold and condition lobsters for live export. Every lobster season there are unexplained mortalities either at the holding facility or during shipping. With recirculation units holding many tonnes of lobsters, and live lobsters averaging $50 per kg in export value, a system failure can result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
NIWA, with the support of SITO, recently ran its first one-day training/refresher course in recirculation system monitoring and management in Wellington.
Northland’s depressed regional economy could generate up to 1300 new jobs and $100 million a year of income from aquaculture within 10 years, according to a NIWA study.
An oyster farm in Northland
Dr Andrew Jeffs has identified Northland as one of the best prospects for aquaculture development in the country. However, he also concluded that the lack of a clear regulatory regime, combined with poor industry skills development and leadership, as well as negative public attitudes, had been holding back the growth of the industry.
Phil Heath discussed the potential of recirculation systems for paua aquaculture in Fisheries & Aquaculture Update No. 6. We now present some findings from NIWA’s own recirculation trials.
Studies in the UK and Ireland have clearly indicated that there is potential for farming European abalone in recirculation systems. NIWA has taken the initiative in evaluating this technology for use with New Zealand’s native abalone or paua.
In November 2002 a small recirculation system was established at the Mahanga Bay aquaculture facility in Wellington.
Anti-inflammatories and skin-care products from the sea
There is enormous potential to develop high-value pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, agrochemical, and other products based on bioactive compounds found in the natural environment.
The biologically diverse tropical rain forests have been seen as the most likely source of useful bioactive compounds, particularly for pharmaceutical applications, but many now consider the oceans as a rival because of their diversity of life.
For this issue of Fisheries & Aquaculture Update we asked Graeme Coates, Executive Director of the New Zealand Marine Farming Association, for an ‘industry comment’.
Graeme Coates
Executive Director, NZMFA
My library of Aquaculture Update, now Fisheries & Aquaculture Update, stretches back to issue No. 7 in 1993, which included in its pages articles on algal blooms, spat shortages in the mussel industry, paua research, and snapper enhancement. I treasure my carefully filed copies of the magazine.
The marine sponge Mycale hentscheli, which is common throughout New Zealand’s coastal waters, has been the focus of research into the sustainable supply of potentially valuable anticancer drugs. NIWA and Victoria University scientists have been studying the ecology, taxonomy, and temporal and spatial patterns in chemistry to identify optimum environmental conditions for aquaculture of this species.
We have developed pilot aquaculture systems to take advantage of the sponge’s extraordinary ability to heal rapidly and reorganise aquiferous systems when damaged.
Dr Vicky Webb is the leader of the biotechnology team at NIWA and she has been involved in natural products research for more than a decade.
She has conducted research on anticancer, antiviral, and antimicrobial drugs.
Dr Hoe Chang is an expert in microalgae, their culture and identification.
Dr Ben Diggles is an expert in the diagnosis and provision of remedial information on fish diseases, and is involved in the probiotics work.
Dr Trevor Mathieson is a natural products chemist expert in catalysis and crystallographic research.
Close up view of Karenia brevisulcata, seen through a scanning electron microscope.
In 1998, marine life in Wellington Harbour was decimated by the bloom of a new toxic microalgal species. The species, now named Karenia brevisulcata, was at the time dubbed ‘The Wellington Harbour Toxin’. The spectacular kills of fish, shellfish, sponges, and seaweeds suggested that the active compound(s) produced by this microalga could be used as the active component in antifouling paint.
