A team of scientists from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is conducting probiotic-type research to see if salmon have bacteria or bacterial bio-markers in their gut or mucus that makes them more resistant to sea lice.

According to these scientists, despite certain success in the traditional practices used to combat these pests, like area management, fallowing between “crops” of fish, and low density stocking, sea lice along Canada’s East Coast are becoming resistant to some treatments.

One of the researchers in the team, Steven Leadbeater, performed a laboratory study in 2013 to examine the natural resistance to sea lice of 50 different families of salmon broodstock provided by Cooke Aquaculture in St George, New Brunswick, to determine if some are more resistant than others, reports Aquaculture North America.

Now, the study being conducted will combine these findings with probiotic-type research using the same salmon families.

“Broodstock samples are being analyzed at Laval University. If results show that some salmon families have fewer sea lice counts and contained certain species of bacteria, we will then try applying a beneficial probiotic — perhaps in feed — to fish that don’t naturally have that resistance,” explained Leadbeater.

Source: FIS // Original Article