The Aquaculture CRSP is facilitating a host country principal investigator project entitled "Training and Information Exchange on Ciclids." This innovative south-south project harnesses two decades of CRSP-generated technologies for aquaculture development that uses low-cost and locally available inputs. This project's goal is to provide an opportunity for host country partners to compare their respective CRSP successes and share lessons learned with one another. This project forms a 5-way information exchange among CRSP investigators from Universidad Juárez Autònoma de Tabasco, Mexico; Escuela Agrícola Panamericana Zamorano, Honduras; Kenya Department of Fisheries, Kenya; Central Luzon State University, Philippines; and the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand.
The Aquaculture CRSP sponsored three student poster awards at the Aquaculture America 2005 meeting in New Orleans. One first place and two runner-up awards were given to those posters judged as the best representatives of the broad research and development theme "to advance sustainable aquaculture." All posters submitted by students were considered and judging was conducted using accepted Aquaculture CRSP guidelines. Specific judging criteria focused on value of the contribution to sustainable aquaculture development, technical quality of the study and level of involvement required, presentation and use of graphics, and overall applicability and benefits of the results.
Aquaculture CRSP awards were presented to the winning students during the USAS Student Reception. In addition, Dr. James Avault kindly donated a copy of his book "Fundamentals of Aquaculture: A Step-by-Step Guide to Commercial Aquaculture" to each of the winning students. The highest judged student posters at Aquaculture America 2005 were as follows:
Student Poster Awards for Aquaculture America, New Orleans
First Place
Peng Li, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M University, "Evaluation of the prebiotic Grobiotic-A and brewers yeast as dietary supplements for sub-adult hybrid striped bass Morone chrysops X M. saxatilis challenged in situ with Mycobacterium marinum."
Second Place
Joseph Sawdy, Department of Animal Sciences, The Ohio State University, "Whole muscle 1-D protein fingerprints of yellow perch Perca flavescens correlate with total body weight and length."
Roberto Quintana, Aquaculture Research Station, Louisiana State University "Rapid estimation of gonad-to-body ratio in oysters."
The Aquaculture CRSP is grateful for the services of all members of the Honors & Awards Committee.
The Aquaculture CRSP has garnered support from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Sea Grant for an innovative program that fosters linkages between Sea Grant and the CRSP, explores the adaptability of the Sea Grant model to other countries, and provides Sea Grant with a model for future work in the international arena. This project will bring New York Sea Grant (Cornell University) extension methods and successes to Universidad Juárez Autònoma de Tabasco, Mexico (a current CRSP host country institution) and this initiative also features special Sea Grant technical assistance expertise for all existing CRSP host country partners. Rhode Island Sea Grant and Texas Sea Grant are also partners in this initiative.
