Sea cucumber scientists travel to Italy, France and South Africa

Gyda Christophersen and Jan Sunde from Møreforsking AS in Norway participated at international conferences focusing on sea cucumbers and aquaculture. This was the first travel abroad to meet colleagues since Covid hit the world!

Christophersen and Sunde participated in a special session on sea cucumbers at the annual conference and trade show of the European Aquaculture Society which took place in Rimini, Italy in September 2022.

The session was organised by Matthew Slater (Alfred Wegener Institut, Bremerhaven, Germany) and Ellen Schagerström (Göteborg University, Sverige). Jan Sunde presented work carried out at Møreforsking on feed uptake in the red sea cucumber Parastichopus tremulus.

Gyda also travelled to Brittany in France (the Marine Biological Station of Concarneau (National Museum of Natural History in France) to contribute to a workshop about sea cucumber aquaculture in which many leading scientists from different parts of the world participated.

The workshop was part of the French funded project «The emergence of skin ulceration diseases in edible sea cucumbers in a global change framework - SKUD» (The emergence of Skin Ulceration Diseases in Edible Sea Cucumbers in a Global Change Framework | ANR), and the EU-funded project HOLOFARM (Holofarm | Facebook). Gyda gave a talk about Møreforsking’s work related to reproduction in captivity of the potential aquaculture species for aquaculture Parastichopus tremulus.

In january 2023 the 2 scientists also attended in a Bilateral South Africa-Norway Conference and Sea Cucumber Symposium.

The meetings gave opportunities to discuss differences and similarities of various sea cucumber species that may have a future in aquaculture. It has been very valuable to meet other scientists and industry and strengthen the international sea cucumber network.

Conclusions from HOLOSUSTAIN workshops

During the second project-year workshop of HOLOSUSTAIN, extensive international involvement was achieved. Participants from Norway and Iceland joined physically, while attendees and presenters online from 9 additional countries joined (Sweden, Greece, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, Ecuador, Spain and Italy). Dr. Lovatelli from the Aquaculture Production and Technology Team of FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Division in Italy presented an overview of FAO`s knowledge and a personal point of view about the opportunities for sea cucumbers to become future seafood resource in Europe. A new FAO guide on the commercially important sea cucumbers of the world is in press, expected to be officially published in 2023. Both North Atlantic Sea cucumber species C.frondosa and P.tremulus are included in the new version of the FAO guide, which yields information about a total of 90 species, fished in 80 countries worldwide. Main concern from the presentation of Dr. Lovatelli and from further discussions has been about the overfishing of sea cucumbers, their invaluable ecological function for maintaining the sea sediments healthy, and the lack of knowledge about the consumer acceptance of sea cucumber derived products in Europe.

Also happening in Spring 2023

Miroslava Atanassova from Møreforsking attended the first edition of the Seafood Festival https://norwayseafoodfestival.no/ in Trondheim on 2 March 2023 and gave a lecture about studies related to alternative marine resources in general, to sea cucumber research and the Holosustain project in particular. The Norway Seafood Festival was arranged in Trondheim for the first time from 2. to 4. March 2023. Exploring and celebrating amazing seafood from Trøndelag and Norway joined by news from science was on the agenda. 

A book entitled “The world of Sea cucumbers. Challenges, Advances and Innovations” was edited by HOLOSUSTAIN partner Memorial University of Newfoundland (MU), Canada, in 2021-2022 and will be fully published on 1 June 2023: https://www.elsevier.com/books/the-world-of-sea-cucumbers/mercier/978-0-323-95377-1. Partners Matis, MU and Møreforsking have contributed together to several chapters in the book, some of the most relevant ones cited below:

“Measurement of sea cucumbers – a review” by Robert Trenholm, Jean-Francois Hamel, Annie Mercier; “Sea cucumber fisheries in Northern Europe” by J. Sunde, G. Christophersen, J. Jónasson “Larval development in sea cucumbers” by M. Sewell, J.F. Hamel, A. Mercier; and “Novel biomaterials and biotechnological applications derived from North Atlantic sea cucumbers: A systematic review” by M.Atanassova, L.K.Midtbø, J.Mildenberger, O.Fridjønsson