Dr Kim Last and Dr Helena Reinardy sampling water for sea lice.
Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS).
Aquaculture researchers in Scotland recently gathered at a national workshop to discuss solutions to the growing problem of sea lice.
The event, organised by the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) and supported by the Sustainable Aquaculture Innovation Centre (SAIC), brought together researchers, industry representatives, regulators and policy-makers, and focused on new technological approaches to monitoring and detecting sea lice.
The workshop, ‘Innovations in Sea Lice Monitoring’, was part of the annual Marine Alliance for Science and Technology Scotland (MASTS) Science Conference held in Glasgow.
“Sea lice is arguably the biggest issue in Scottish aquaculture and, with the adoption of the new sea lice regulatory framework this year, the issue needs to be better understood across research, policy, regulatory and industry sectors," said event chair and SAMS marine biologist Dr Helena Reinardy, in a SAMS press release.
“As well as being a welfare issue for farmed fish, we need to better understand sea lice larvae distribution in the water to assess potential impacts on the surrounding environment," Reinardy said.
“Through this workshop we’ve been able to get various stakeholders together to explore this issue in detail and to share the latest developments in research, including underwater laser holography, eDNA, artificial intelligence and fluorescent microscopy," she added.
Microscopic image of a sea louse, Lepeophtheirus salmonis.
Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS).
Dr Kim Last of SAMS, one of the speakers at the event, pointed out that sea lice remain a huge problem for fish welfare.
“There are moves towards more closed farming systems, but these systems will still need to source water from the sea. This makes it really important to understand the behaviour of sea lice larvae in the wild, specifically when and where they occur in the water column, which is challenging given their rarity," Last said,
SAMS has been trialling new methods of detecting sea lice larvae in the water column, with its team expanding their expertise in sea lice research, from microscopic analysis to field capturing techniques.
Dr Last pointed out that while research organisations like SAMS are working on better monitoring methods, collaboration and input from all stakeholders is needed to find solutions.
Peter Pollard, Head of Ecology at the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, echoed these sentiments, saying, "As Scotland’s lead environmental regulator responsible for managing interactions between sea lice from fish farms and wild salmon and sea trout, we welcome scientific innovation aimed at cost-efficiently and accurately detecting and monitoring infective-stage sea lice in the sea."
