Nine decades OF SUPPORT back breakthrough research
BY MARK BARRATT-BOYES M
arine scientist Dr Zoë Hilton is in some distinguished company. She is the most recent of three young female scientists working at The
Cawthron Institute to win a prestigious international award to pursue research on shellfi sh aquaculture. The award is also a tribute to the institute itself, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary. Dr Hilton will use her UNESCO-L'Oréal International
Fellowship for Young Women in the Life Sciences to further her study into the captive breeding of Ostrea edulis, otherwise known as the European fl at oyster, and Ostrea chilensis, the New Zealand delicacy known as the Bluff oyster. The award is offered to 15 women each year to facilitate
international exchanges for research projects in some of the world's best laboratories. The two previous recipients from Cawthron were Allison Haywood and Jenny Smith. Dr Hilton will spend six months at Spain's Institute
for Food and Agriculture Research and Technology investigating larval nutrition and the brooding environment in the European fl at oyster. European oysters brood from around half a million to a million larvae for eight to 10 days before releasing them. Bluff oysters, on the other hand, retain their larvae for three weeks and only produce 3500 to 150,000 per female. The unusual biology makes captive breeding particularly
diffi cult, which precludes selective breeding and also means there are dangers from inbreeding of small populations, so Ostrea production relies totally on collecting wild spat, says Dr Hilton. "If, however, we were able to breed Ostrea species successfully in captivity it would provide a sustainable source of animals for the aquaculture industries to grow, taking pressure off wild adult stocks. "It would also remove pressure on stocks of wild spat
and, if necessary, facilitate the recovery of wild populations through stock enhancement," she says. "It is a tremendous opportunity not only to learn from others working in this fi eld, creating collaborations and
8 ■ NZ AQUACULTURE ■ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 Dr Zoë Hilton
developing international contacts, but also to gain valuable exposure for our research, which is usually hard to get." She will receive her award in Paris in March 2012 and
start the fellowship in 2013. Back in 1915, businessman Thomas Cawthron bequeathed £231,000 in his will to set up the Cawthron Institute, which opened in 1921. Its early research was in agriculture and horticulture, including weed and pest control, honey, tomato and apple research. It expanded into aquaculture in the 1980s, concentrating on the microbiology of marine and freshwater systems, then initiated research into harmful algae and undertaking water quality surveys for new aquaculture and fi shing ventures. In the early 1990s, Cawthron scientist Dr Henry Kaspar started the world's fi rst selective mussel breeding programme when he backed a doctorate student's bid to solve a problem that had baffl ed scientists for many years: how to grow the unique New Zealand Greenshell mussel in a hatchery.
