The book is a useful guide for fish immunologists and pathologists, as well as fish farmers. It is a comprehensive review of current research activities in genetics in aquaculture, and reports the status of applications of various subdisciplines of genetics. It contains five reviews on selected topics, all of which present genetics as a science, parallel to animal husbandry. These describe monitoring genetic changes, effective population size and selection in variable aquaculture stocks, growth and reproduction in fish and shellfish, ploidy manipulation and performance, and developing a commercial breeding programme. The reviews report a historical insight into modern animal breeding, the examination of the potential of biotechnology in aquaculture, and an overview of those elements critical to commercial breeding programmes.
Most papers deal with finfish, but works on crustaceans, shellfish, and seaweeds are also included.
The book contains abstracts of poster papers presented at the symposium, which offer additional overviews of research activities within genetics in aquaculture, and exemplify the complexity of current issues. The book presents various aspects of freshwater ecology as related to fish production. It contains four major sections, with 19 papers from 21 contributors from different regions. Section 1 presents important statistics in fish populations, estimates of production, population abundance and survival, fecundity, and some aspects of age and growth. Food supply in fish populations is analysed in Section 2, through a review of food production in different ecosystems, aspects of metabolism and growth, the role of predatory fish in ecosystems, and an estimation of food consumption by fish in nature.