Dr Roger Huerlimann1
1Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Onna-son, Japan
Biography:
Roger Huerlimann is a senior researcher at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan. There, he is researching how tropical reef fish can acclimate to raising sea temperatures and heat waves. Before joining OIST, Roger completed a PhD at James Cook University (JCU) in Australia and spent the next five years there working as a post-doc in the Center for Sustainable Tropical Fisheries and Aquaculture and the Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research (TropWATER). During this time, Roger worked on several commercial important aquaculture (barramundi, black tiger prawn, and silver lipped pearl oyster) and fisheries species (coral trouts), as well as other marine species (green sea turtles, hammerhead sharks and sawfish). Roger has extensive experience in carrying out molecular biology and genomics related research from the laboratory through to completing all required bioinformatic analyses. This includes sequencing, assembly and annotation of genomes and transcriptomes, metabarcoding (bacterial 16S, fungal ITS, eukaryotic 12S or COI), viral/bacterial metagenomics and eDNA research (field, lab and analysis protocols).
Abstract:
Kuruma shrimp farming is an important industry worth almost 60 billion JPY globally, providing employment, protein, and food security. Nevertheless, effective management remains a challenge. Conventional shrimp farming in Japan involves labor-intensive manual shrimp counting, subjective assessment of their condition (dead/alive/molting). These categories offer only a very coarse view of shrimp health and lack consideration for the bacterial community. Assessing shrimp density, molting status, and daily feeding is crucial to accurately adjust feed, preventing waste and disease from overfeeding, and ensuring proper growth by avoiding underfeeding. Environmental nucleic acid (eNA) analyses, encompassing environmental DNA (eDNA) and RNA (eRNA), tap into genetic material organisms release into their habitat. eNA sampling involves filtering environmental water, a non-invasive technique that can be coupled with bacterial monitoring. eRNA/eDNA ratios can be used to estimate quantity and activity of live shrimp and specific eRNA biomarkers to estimate molting proportions, while shifts in bacterial communities can be used to assess overall pond health. Therefore, eNA analyses promise to revolutionize shrimp farm monitoring.