CFEED produces copepod eggs for the marine larviculture industry. Industrial copepod production is a novel business concept still in early stage, and CFEED is to date the only operational company producing copepod eggs for the marine larviculture sector worldwide.
CFEED is not only the worldʼs leading producer of copepods but also possesses a uniquely productive strain of the species Acartia tonsa that has been kept under controlled laboratory conditions for several decades. It was recently demonstrated in the SELCOP project that selective breeding has the potential to substantially enhance the egg laying capacity of cultivated copepods and thereby increase the efficiency of CFEEDs production.
The results obtained by selective breeding in SELCOP are entirely phenotypic, not genetic. We hence cannot ascertain the accumulation of inbreeding in the selected copepod lines. SEQOP will address this by conducting genetic sequencing on preserved samples from each generation of breeding and evaluate the change in genetic diversity across the breeding program.
The main objective of this qualifying project is to determine if selective breeding for phenotypic traits in Acartia tonsa leads to significant genetic changes in the copepod population.
