Researchers Working to Develop Lobster Probiotic
Contact: Deborah Bouchard, (207) 581-2767
Improving the food quality and safety of lobsters while being stored in the pound is one of the goals of a project spearheaded by Deborah Bouchard of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
Bouchard, working with David Basti and Anne Lichtenwalner also of UMaine’s Cooperative Extension, recently was awarded a $247,547 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration that will fund two years of research.
Lobsters are subject to a variety of potential stressors from the time that they are harvested until they reach the consumer.
The project’s ultimate goal is to develop a probiotic nutritional supplement for lobsters being held in tidal lobster pounds or stored in land-based holding tank facilities that will reduce the need for antibiotics and decrease the stress caused by a potential feeding frenzy.
A previous study showed that lobsters detained for long distance transport or temporary storage in pounds undergo physiological disturbance (stress) when they are captured. The level of stress depends on the depth of the capture, hauling rate and storage methodology, which researchers tested during their trials.
In conclusion, Bouchard, Basti, and UMaine marine science Professor Ian Bricknell found during this previous study that, although a reduction in fishing depth and hauling rate is not economically feasible, other handling practices and strategies are possible.
They recommend that after lobsters are caught, they be given a rest period in recirculating ambient temperature seawater below deck to allow for partial recovery from the effects of being rapped and hauled in.
By taking precautions when packing lobsters in totes for transport, including tucking lobsters’ tails underneath them to protect from abdominal injury and ensuring that all the lobsters face the same way in the totes, injury and overexertion can be minimized.
Bouchard, Basti and Lichtenwalner also are proposing an integrated approach to ensuring lobster health by addressing the physiological stress of the lobster, as well as the environmental and nutritional components of lobster impounding by offering a holistic alternative to traditional antibiotic feed supplements.
Instead of feeding lobsters that are destined for a pound large amounts of fish byproducts from random locations within the pound causing a feeding frenzy, the researchers are developing a probiotic, nutrient dense feed supplement that could be broadcast fed to satiety at more frequent intervals, thus reducing lobster aggregation and possibly aggression. The probiotic feed supplement potentially could provide a source of nutrition to aid in feed conversion, nutrient assimulation and exoskeletal calcification, and may increase the survivability of lobsters during cold weather impoundment and long distance transport.
In addition, the feed supplement is expected to improve food quality and safety by reducing the industry’s dependence on antibiotics.
The research team also intends to educate producers regarding best management practices for handling and storage of live lobsters.
The University of Maine, founded in 1865, is the state’s premier public university, located in the town of Orono. It is among the most comprehensive higher education institutions in the Northeast and attracts students from across the U.S. and more than 60 countries. It currently enrolls 12,000 total undergraduate and graduate students who can directly participate in groundbreaking research working with world-class scholars. Students are offered 88 bachelor’s degree programs, 64 master’s degree programs, 25 doctoral programs and one of the oldest and most prestigious honors programs in the U.S. The university promotes environmental stewardship on its campus, with substantial efforts aimed at conserving energy, recycling and adhering to green building standards in new construction. For more information about the University of Maine visit http://www.umaine.edu