Spatial distribution of planktonic sea lice in the Broughton Archipelago, and cross-validation inputs to numeric model

Description

Development of effective farm location and management practices requires ongoing knowledge of where sea lice larvae are located, how far and fast they spread from farm sources of adult lice and eggs, and how long the larvae remain present and infective after outputs from the farm sources are reduced by treatment or harvest. This project proposes to describe the spatial distribution of planktonic larval sea lice in Knight Inlet and the Broughton Archipelago. Extensive spring-season sampling programs in 2007 and 2008 showed that although sea lice larvae abundances were quite low, they were consistently located near fish farms that contained large numbers of fish, and had not recently been treated with SLICE^® . This project will provide validation data for the Stucchi and Foreman computer model of lice dispersal and advection by sampling in mid-late autumn, when densities of lice and egg output at the fish farms, and abundance of farm-origin planktonic lice are at their annual maxima.

Findings

N/A

Publications

N/A

Program Name

Program for Aquaculture Regulatory Research (PARR)

Year(s)

2009 - 2010

Ecoregion(s)

Pacific: Vancouver Island West Coast

Principal Investigator(s)

David Mackas
Email: Dave.Mackas@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Moira Galbraith
Email: Moira.Galbraith@dfo-mpo.gc.ca