“Key Technology of Rapana venosa Seed Culture”, a subtask of “The Research of Key Technology of New Culture Species Seed Culture”, which is a project undertaken by the Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in National Key Technology R&D Program of the 12th Five year Plan, was recently checked and accepted on site.
Rapana venosa, an important economic species and commonly known as “Sea Snail”, distributed widely in the Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea and East Sea in China. The currently supply of Rapana venosa in China mostly depends on the harvesting of the wild resources. While in recent years, the wild resources of Rapana venosa has seriously declined because of the increasing price and overexploitation of this species. Since 1990s, many efforts have been made on the artificial breedingof Rapana venosa, but the breeding efficiency was very low, which can barely meet the industrial scale, and has seriously affected the aquaculture industry of Rapana venosa.
Supported by the fundof “National Key Technology R&D Program in the 12th Five year Plan”, Professor Tao Zhang along with other researchers has tackled the key problems of acceleration of broodstock gonadal maturation, stable and efficient cultivation of larvae, efficient collection and large-scale intermediate rearing of seeds. Thus, a generally efficient technology of Rapana venosa large-scale seed rearing was developed, and the initial realization of Rapana venosa large-scale and efficient seed cultivation and industrialization was also achieved.
In the process of the research, the group members developed two seed-collection facilities and methods independently, solved the problems of transition of eating patterns, made a breakthrough in the seed-collection technology and raised the metamorphosis rates up to more than 60% and survival rate of intermediate cultivation to more than 90%. The average seed-producing rate was 21 000 ind./m3, and the mean shell height of juvenile Rapana venosa after metamorphosis reached 5.0mm (maximum 10.1mm).
Now, the expanding propagation of Rapana venosa has not been industrialized, which attributed to the problem of transition of eating patterns during the larval metamorphosis. This research has made a breakthrough in the key technology of Rapana venosa seed production-eating pattern transition and seed collection, which has laid a good foundation for the seed rearing industrialization of Rapana venosa.
Publication: Dong-xiu Xue, Tao Zhang, Jin-Xian Liu, 2013. Isolation and characterization of 24 polymorphic microsatellite loci for the veined rapa whelk, Rapana venosa. Conservation Genetics Resources,.