EU projects at the Aquaculture Europe 2023

Sessions

The 3-day conference includes 11 sessions running in parallel and covering all possible aspects related to aquaculture.

Grid directory (aquaeas.org)

EU aquaculture projects include normally 20 to 30 partner entities. From these entities, numerous researchers will be having oral presentations across all these sessions. Sessions will not be transmitted online. Find below a list of oral presentations by participants in EU-funded projects.

Monday 18 September

Workshop on “Animal health and welfare in aquaculture: novel approached for disease management” organised by EU-funded projects CURE4AQUA and IGNITION to showcase both initiatives, their progress and results so far. Find out more

Tuesday, 19 September

SESSION: Genomics/Postgenomics/Epigenetics

• “Assessing early utilisation of vegetable-based feed and its possible interaction with genotype and epigenetics in Atlantic salmon”, by EU-funded AquaIMPACT.

SESSION: Nutrition - Alternative ingredients

• “The effect of genetic improvements on optimal fish feed formulation: a traits-to-feed framework”, by AquaIMPACT.
• “Total dietary replacement of wild-caught FM, FO and soy using by-products from fishery and aquaculture and microalgae: implication on growth, digestive enzyme activities, plasma biochemistry and gut health of European seabass juveniles” by EU-funded NewTechAqua project.

WORKSHOP "Light and fish, chaired by the coordinator of the EU-funded project SAFE.

Wednesday, 20 September

Plenary presentations with the AquaIMPACT project’scoordinator talking about “Breeding for Resilience – Are we ready?”.

SESSION: Health Management-biosecurity and prevention

• “Development of epidemiological model for predicting cage-level salmon lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) abundance” by NewTechAqua project.

SESSION: Nutrition - Feed and Feeding Management

• “iFishIENCi feed and feeding technology development in RAS.” By iFishIENCi project.

During the students’ session:

• “Integrating biomarkers and health responses in sensor platforms for non-invasive monitoring” by IGNITION project.

INNOVATION FORUM

The AE2023 Innovation Forum is dedicated to new innovations on the theme of balancing diversity within aquaculture and the wider blue economy. It includes a series of specific pitching sessions, showcasing research driven innovations to support aquaculture growth and sustainability.

AquaIMPACT project's coordinator Antti Kause will be chairing the 'Innovations in breading' (pitching session).

The AquaIMPACTpartners will discuss with the audience about:

• Selective breeding and genomics - Driver for profitable and sustainable aquaculture production.
• Success of breeding programmes in Mediterranean aquaculture species.
• Automatization and robotics in fish trait recording.
• Solutions to improve health and performance in fish and shrimp culture.
• Novel raw materials for sustainable aquaculture (incl. experimental assessment of the fish meal content requirements for Meagre feeds)

Thursday, 21 September

SESSION: Selective breeding

• “Single-step genomic prediction in growth and sexual maturity traits in Finnish Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)”, by AquaIMPACT.
• “Genomic analysis of a downgrading trait in Atlantic salmon using field data”, by AquaIMPACT.

SESSION: Microbiome

• “Microbiota at the water-fish interface: The case of study of rainbow trout fed with a novel feed formulation containing Tenebrio Molitor meal”,by AquaIMPACT.
• “Genetically superior Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus Labrax) and nutritional innovations: Effects on gut microbiota”, by AquaIMPACT.

SESSION: Reproduction & Broodstock Management

• “Reproductive behaviour and parental contribution of meagre (Argyrosomus regius) in aquaculture conditions, in relation to sound production during spawning” by NewTechAqua project.
• “Spermatogonial proliferation and apoptosis in prepubertal meagre argryrosomus regius (asso, 1801) treated with recombinant follicle stimulating hormone, and comparison with adults.” by NewTechAqua  project.
• “Data management for broodstock facilities and organizations doing research in fish reproduction, genetics and other fields” by NewTechAqua  project.

SESSION: Micro-algae

• “Genetic variation in growth between seminavis robusta strains assessed through crossbreeding” by NewTechAqua project.

SESSION: Nutrition - Physiology & Requirements

• “Exploring the gut microbiome modulation by circular aquafeed ingredients in gilthead sea bream and European sea bass” by NewTechAqua  project.

SESSION: Aquaponics and Urban farming

• “Integrating Salicornia and flathead grey mullet farming in marine aquaponic systems” by NewTechAqua  project.

SESSION: Offshore & Multi-use

• “Northern Europe’s suitability for offshore European Flat Oyster (Ostrea Edulis) restorative aquaculture” by UNITED project.

SESSION: Socio-economics & Consumer

• “New technologies and approaches for sustainable seafood supply chain” by FishEUTrust and Sea2See.

WORKSHOP: “Barriers and opportunities of IMTA and Low Trophic Aquaculture development: experiences from European projects, organized by EU-funded ASTRAL and AquaVitae projects

The workshop aims to facilitate a dialogue with the other projects working with Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture (IMTA) and Low Trophic Aquaculture (LTA), namely FutureEUAqua, InEVal, Integrate, IMPAQT, INNOAQUA, Remedia and SeaMark, to address the global challenges faced by the EU aquaculture sector, covering environmental changes, economic feasibility, and social acceptance contexts. The focus will be on the sustainable development of LTA and IMTA in three different sessions:

• Challenges and opportunities of governance in the EU: Creating inclusive legislative and regulatory frameworks.
• Developing markets, rethinking business models, and financial instruments for socio-economic sustainability: Building a competitive and resilient IMTA/LTA sector.
• Recognizing environmental performance and fostering IMTA/LTA's contribution to the green deal: Developing a sustainable aquaculture sector while respecting nature.

In addition,

AQUAFAANGproject will deliver up to eight presentation in this session.

CURE4AQUAwill present:

• “Immunomodulatory properties of a nematode host defense peptide anisaxin in fish peripheral blood cells”.

ASTRAL project will deliver several oral presentations during the conference as:

• The ASTRAL Technology User Guide - a knowledge development and capacity building tool for aquaculture training courses and apprenticeships              
• Growing native oysters (Ostrea edulis) in open water IMTA systems - a pilot study     
• Off-the-shelf AI vision technology supporting shrimp biomass estimation across the Atlantic
• Supporting aquaculture applications with low-power data communication: a case of study on multitrophic farming with LoRaWAN technology 
• Computer vision-based urchin biomass estimation: a case study in South Africa IMTA farm
• IMTA in action: two decades of growing the green seaweed Ulva in integrated land-based systems on South African abalone farms          
• Urchin-Ulva in South Africa: from research to pilot commercial scale
• Bacterial dynamics in a commercial integrated abalone-Ulva farm: from hatchery to grow-out
• The challenge to promote IMTA in a country with low monoculture production. The Argentine case.
• Communication campaigns to promote ocean literacy and Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina   
• Circularity assessment of IMTA infrastructure in the context of ASTRAL project

Booths

In parallel to the conference, a tradeshow area will hold several booths promoting the activities and results of numerous EU-funded projects.

• Two BOOTHS connecting 4 EU project on Aquaculture: SAFE, EUMOFA, Sea2See, and FishEUTrust
• AquaIMPACT project will exhibit in 2 different booths the demo unit they have created, and the “feednetics” software they have upgraded will be one of the highlights in the SPAROS booth.
• IGNITION will be presented in the Blue BioEconomy CoLab collaboration booth.
• AQUAVITAE and ASTRAL projects will hold a booth to present educational material and prototypes. 
• AQUAFAANG project will be presented in the booth of the partners at EFFAB. This will be at exhibition booth #53. Project partners will be present at the relevant times to answer questions.
• NewTechAqua will be promoted at Booth 39 of EATIP with a video of NewTechAqua and teaser video of the #IworkinAquaculture campaign, and at Booth 116 of Unibo (University of Bologna (unibo.it) with a roll up of NewTechAqua and possibility to meet the researchers of Unibo involved in the project