Probiotics in scallops larviculture: Taking advantage of the natural microflora in shellfish aquaculture

Sammendrag This project aims at developing a probiotics concept that can be used in large scale cultivation of scallops (Pecten maximus) larvae.  We want to study bacteria associated with the mucosal surfaces of the larvae directly, focusing on extraction and molecu lar methods to circumvent cultivation, and fingerprint this community directly by DGGE.  The fingerprinting will include detection of pathogens, some of which are intracellular bacteria that presently cannot be cultivated. The fingerprint will be compared to cultured bacteria for the identification of relationship.  Specific genetic probes will be used for microscopic visualisations of the bacteria in situ and tests will be performed to investigate for the production of antimicrobial compounds by the norm al flora bacteria extracted.  Laboratory and large scale in vivo trials will be performed in order to develop the application of probiotics into industry scale.  A full scale industrial scallops hatchery will be used for this purpose.