Cooperative Regional Oyster Selective Breeding (CROSBreed) Project of Potential of Selected Stocks for Restoration and Extensive PlanningDespite the devastating impact that the parasitic diseases Dermo and MSX have had on oyster populations in the Chesapeake Bay, there are still oysters that survive because of natural resistance to infection. It is such oysters that researchers have been breeding in hatcheries in an attempt to develop families of disease-resistant broodstock. Synthetic strains of oysters resistant to MSX were first bred in the early 60s at Rutgers University – since the early 90s, biologist Standish Allen has been working with researchers in the mid-Atlantic region to develop and test oysters specially bred to tolerate both MSX and Dermo. Referred to as CROSBreed (for the Cooperative Regional Oyster Selective Breeding project), these oysters are being tested for survivability and disease resistance at numbers of sites in Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay – over the last three years, CROSBreed oysters have shown that they survive and grow as well or better than local oysters. Still in the testing phase, these special oysters are being distributed to commercial oyster hatcheries on the east coast. In this continuing project, researchers will produce young oysters from third and fourth generation CROSBreed broodstock and – in cooperation with state agencies, non-profit organizations, citizens groups and public schools – will conduct extensive field trials using the disease-resistent oysters in oyster gardening and major restoration projects. The aim is to determine how much improvement there is in CROSBreed stocks compared with local oysters and to assess whether high-intensity breeding of such stocks is a viable component of a strategy for large-scale restoration of the Bay's depleted oyster populations. |
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2000-2001
Kennedy T. Paynter Department of Biology University of Maryland Donald Meritt Horn Point Laboratory University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science 1996-1997 Standish K. Allen, Jr., Ximing Guo, Susan E. Ford and Greg DeBrosse Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory Rutgers University Patrick M. Gaffney College of Marine Studies University of Delaware Mark Luckenbach and Eugene Burreson Virginia Institute of Marine Science Donald Meritt UMCES Horn Point Laboratory University System of Maryland Kennedy T. Paynter, Jr. Department of Zoology University of Maryland, College Park |
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