Abstract

The northern red snapper Lutjanus campechanus support major commercial and recreational fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico. Severe harvest restrictions have stimulated research investigating aquaculture of the species for stock enhancement and commercial production. A pilot stocking program is currently being implemented in Mississippi in collaboration be-tween the University of southern Mississippi and the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. Objectives of the project include developing the production of juveniles in intensive systems and evaluating the potential for stocking hatchery-reared juveniles on artificial reef habitats deployed in Mississippi coastal waters. The production of juveniles is currently limited by the unreliable spawning activity of captive broodstocks and the low survival rates through larval development. Egg pro-duction relies on induction of gamete maturation in wild-caught brooders using chorionic gonadotropin which leads to vari-able egg quality potentially impacting the viability of pre-feeding larvae. Red snapper larvae then require copepods as an initial feed and the survival rates through the larval culture phase are still low (<10% in most trials). Current research focus-es on evaluating feeding protocols incorporating the results of larval nutrition studies to improve survival and on scaling-up the production of copepod live feeds. Hatchery juveniles are being released on artificial fish and monitoring in the near term will focus on assessing their survival shortly after release using trapping and acoustic tagging approaches. A genetic pro-gram is also in development and aims to assist with the spatial management of releases through studies of population struc-ture and local adaptation of regional populations.

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