As one of Chinese national science and technology platforms of natural resources, the participation platform of aquatic germplasm resources has been being built for four years. So far, the workshop of the platform has been composed of 26 scientific institutions such as some provincial fisheries research institutes and universities, and 61 resources conservation institutions including 36 state-level hatcheries. Funded by the project, the total of 123 standards of the platform were set up for aquatic resource description and the technical procedure, and two books ─ Introduction and Utilization of Chinese Aquatic Resources and Fishes of Yangtze River Estuary were published. At present, there are total 5314 pieces of resource information on the website including 612 species of the living, 3375 species of specimens, 430 species of DNA, 116 species of sperm and 64 species of cell line, and a virtual museum of aquatic specimens can be found on it too.

In September 2007, CAFS acquired the membership to FishBase Federation. Surly in the future will more and more international colleagues put their eyes on the participation platform of aquatic germplasm resources, and Chinese fisheries specifically.

The Key Processes and Sustainable Mechanisms of Ecosystem Food Production in the Coastal Ocean of China is a project of National Key Basic Research Programs (973 Programs) from the Ministry of Science and Technology, P. R. China. Studying on the functional diversity and food production processes at high marine trophic levels, and anthropogenic impact from food production processes and sustainable yield models, A new understanding about the dynamic mechanism of the sustainable supply from the biogenic elements in the Yellow Sea cold water area was presented and the primary relationship between zooplankton and high trophic level resources was obtained. In the research of hydrodynamics and carrying capacity in the mariculture area, the models of key physic and biogeochemical process were built and the expounding environmental response to fish industry and evaluation of carrying capacity in the area were described. The mechanism of food production in the coastal ocean of China was basically elucidated through the multi-principle and integrated research of supporting role of key biogeochemical process to food production, key marine dynamic process of biogenic elements cycle and recruitment, basic production and biogeochemical coupling, and biological function group food produce and sustainable models.

Commonweal project of science and technology department “Quality Control Technology of Mariculture Fish and Shrimp” and investigation project of commonweal foundation “Drug Residue Monitoring on Aquaculture Animal” obtained much progress. Pharmacokinetics and residues behaviours of norfloxacin, compound sulfamethoxazole and oxytetracyclin on Lateolabrax japonicus, Paralichthys olivaceus and Sparus macrocephalus have been grasped. Pharmacokinetics and residues of chloramphenicol, nitrofurans, Ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin on Scophthalmus maximus were studied, and the residue periods were obtained. The safety application techniques of oxytetracycline, compound sulfamethoxazole, norfloxacin, oxolinic acid, florfenicol and neomycin sulfate were established. Withdrawal periods of oxytetracycline, compound sulfamethoxazole, norfloxacin, oxolinic acid and florfenicol on Sparus macrocephalus, Lateolabrax japonicus, Paralichthys olivaceus and Penaeus Chinensis have been established. The detection methods of nitrofurans, polychlorinated biphenyls, thiamphenicol, florfenicol, praziquantel, sulfonamides and histamine on aquatic animals have been founded.

These research progresses play a significant role in the determination work of veterinary residues on Scophthalmus maximus, aquatic products quality control and safety investigation on flounder and shrimp, residual monitoring on fishery drug and special administer of banned drugs nitrofurans etc.

Key Technology R&D Program in the Eleventh Five-year Plan Period “Japanese flounder fine family strain selection and breeding” achieves great progress. The gynogenetic diploid offspring was produced through the inhabitation of the first cleavage by using hydrostatic pressure. Presently, a total of 253 gynogenetic diploid individuals were bred. 51 offspring were randomly selected and detected by using 12 microsatellite markers. It was found that 49 individuals were homozygous in all detected loci. This was the first case in China using the method described above to construct pure lines for Japanese flounder. The hybrids of homozygous individuals won’t segregate in the traits, and its homozygosity equals to 20 generations of full-sib crosses. Inhibiting the first cleavage of fish, homozygote can be obtained in one generation and pure lines can be established in two generations. A mass batch of marine fish homozygotes was obtained using this method, which is also original and preceding in the world.

Homozygous individuals not only provide very valuable breeding materials for marine fish aquaculture, but also can be used as experimental animals for biological experiments such as feed experiment, fish diseases and drug potency test. The success of homozygote flounder offers a new method for fish breeding within a short period. To sum up, this project is a milestone in cell engineering for marine fish.

More advances in aquatic breeding have been made in a series of major programmes such as ‘New varieties selection of tilapia and other farmed fish’, ‘Selection for high production and high quality new varieties in shrimp, shellfish and algae’, both of which were funded by Key Technologies R&D Programme, and ‘Selective breeding of high production and stress-tolerated new varieties of flounders’, funded by National High-tech R&D Programme (863 Programme). In family breeding, traditional breeding techniques combined with modern biological techniques such as AFLP, SSR, RAPD, etc. and BLUP method were used to screen families of Fenneropenaeus chinensis that have high resistance to ammonia and pH value, and thirteen families were selected for high resistance to ammonia, and sixteen families were selected for high resistance to pH value. Selective breeding system of peaneus mondon was introduced, and more than ten of the base populations and breeding populations were established in Penaeus vannamei. The crossbreeding between Chlamys farreri and Patinopecten yesoensis were carried out, and at the same time the selective breeding system of Laminaria japonica Aresch and Porphyra yezoensis were also developed. Based on the research of breeding for tilapia, carp, Paralichthys olivaceus, Micropterus salmoidest and Scophthalmus maximus, a relatively integrated breeding system has been set up for tilapia and other farmed new fish species. Four new varieties, seven new strains, and twenty hybrid families were selected for tilapia, carp, Paralichthys olivaceus and other major famed fish, respectively.

Development of all the above research programmes proved that, the theories and methods for breeding of new varieties are more scientific and standardized, and will provide a more scientific support for the continued cultivation of new varieties and sustainable development of aquaculture.

In the course of executing the 973 project “study of disease resistance molecular mechanism and functional gene of fish”, we have selected tens of genes such as hepcidin, chemokine and so on after constructing the cDNA library of turbot spleen and head-kidney. Then we studied the expression change of these disease resistance-related genes in the different tissues and cell lines before and after pathogen infection, and the results showed that the pathogen infection stimulated the expression of these genes. We established disease resistance flounder populations and families, from which four families with strong disease resistance and two gene markers relative to disease resistance of flounder were screened out.

In the another 973 project “study of disease resistance molecular mechanism and functional gene of fish”, three cDNA clones of fish that have strong interaction with TRBIV MCP were selected from turbot cDNA library. The strong interaction between the proteins coded by the cDNA and TRBIV MCP were demonstrated. These proteins may play an important action for the TRBIV attack the host cells to begin its infection. After the expression condition of recombined WSSV attachment protein was optimized, the WSSV envelop protein genes, including VAP1 and VAP2, etc., were successively expressed, and the antibodies were prepared. Joint vaccines for three Vibrios, including V. anguillarum, V. harveyi, and V. damsela, were prepared under the support of the project “Preparation of commercial fish vaccines and demonstration for industrial scale application”.

The progress of these projects marked that the study of disease resistance and pathogenic mechanism of aquatic animals in our academy has gone deeply into the fields of effective disease prevention methods exploitation based on aquatic disease mechanism. And these results have provided a good foundation for disease resistance variety breeding and development of vaccine and immunoenhancer.

In support of 973 project titled “Development of microsatellite DNA markers and marker-assisted selection in fish”, molecular markers were tested on different common carp populations for amplification success rate and genetic variation, and three specific markers for Heilongjiang population were characterized. Meanwhile, the second-generation linkage map of common carp with 311 markers is completing, and the mapping of body-weight-related QTL verified that these markers could be used as selection criteria for stocks with rapid growth trait. In support of 863 project titled “Studies on sex control techniques of marine fish and shrimp”, female-specific AFLP markers for tongue sole were characterized and a practical level PCR method for genetic sex identification was developed. At the same time, over 100 polymorphic microsatellite DNA markers of tongue sole were isolated and characterized. The gynogenesis techniques for tongue sole, star flounder, Atlantic flounder and turbot were established and gynogenetic diploid populations for these fishes were created consisting of 4,000 fries. The researches mentioned above were oriented towards demands for aquaculture industry.

Recent progresses on development and utilization of molecular markers, developmental genetics research and sex control in fishes manifest that the research strengths of CAFS have been continuously strengthened in the field of aquaculture biotechnology, and at the same time, these progresses provide powerful supports for aquaculture development at a higher level.

The 948 Introduced Projects of the Ministry of Agriculture--- " Introduction, Innovation and Demonstration of Key Technologies of Tilapia High-value Processing", simultaneously supported by the National Natural Science Fund, the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province and so on, introduced and innovated color retention technology of tilapia fillets, explained the mechanism of color retention and the impacting factors at the molecular level, applied the technology for pilotscale experiment, established production demonstration bases and began the industrial production; in which eligible rate of color retention was more than 90 percent；introduced and innovated of tilapia extrusion technology of the organization and enhanced the value of tilapia; studied on the changes of smoked tilapia fillets in texture, microorganisms, fatty acids, volatile components during frozen storage, in order to providing a theoretical basis to improve the quality and the shelf life of smoked tilapia fillets; peptides hydrolyzed by enzymes and antifreeze derived from fish flesh protein raised the frozen degeneration ability of tilapia; carried out research and analysis of the flow of tilapia aquaculture products, traceability process technology and construction, and empolored the tilapia aquaculture products quality management system and traceable system.

The research system development of tilapia high-value processing raised our tilapia processing of high-value level remarkably. And the product quality management system and technical programme of traceable system will play a good promoting role for our country's aquatic product processing from technical flow to quality control in the entire process.

Further progress is achieved by research on facilities system of deep water net cage basing on the accomplished research. key auxiliary equipments of storm-resist net cage industrialization culture are developed, perfecting manufacture technology of storm-resist net cage, the ability of resisting the current is improved significantly. The mathematical model of the force and movement response for fishing nets in marine conditions are constructed. computer simulation program of fishing nets system are developed independently, net cage numerical simulation software system “CageSim” is formed, which has the independent intellectual property rights. Development of critical equipments on marine facilities system are obtained the preliminary achievements. The development of application of intelligent submarine net cleaning machine, submarine remote monitoring system, automatic hauling machine, remote feeding system, fish harvesting facility are achieve success. According to Rachycentroncanadum, Trachinotus ovatus and some culture species, structure of cage-type, culture environment, research on culture species growth digital management which includes growth curve, optimal culture nodes control, culture material consumption and optimal fish harvest nodes, culture cost benefit optimal regulation technology. The giant net cage which circumference is 160m and aquaculture water more than 10000m3 is first developed successfully. new culture area in south sea waters are more than 30000 m3 and new net cage in yellow sea waters are more than 200.

Development and demonstration of net cage system auxiliary equipments not only solving the problems of research and manufacture of net cage, but more importantly, the concepts, sci-tech connotation and development space of traditional net cage culture modes are expanded. Promoting the diversification development of net cage form, laying a good foundation for realizing the mechanization, automation and intelligent of culture production. promote and put forward changing the situations which the marine facilities culture and culture technology are relatively backward, aquaculture water and ecological environment cause contamination in the future. We can foresee the net cage equipments will promote cultivation industry to the development direction of industrialization, scale and intensive. It will be new growth point of marine fishery economic development in China.

Traceability System is an important technical supporting system for the security management and execution of aquatic products. In 2007, with the goal of establishing scientific, standard, effective and practical traceability system, the Quality Standard Research Center of our Institute conducted the research on the key techniques of traceability system of aquatic products on the present research basis. The project covered every key steps of supply chain, ranging from production to circulation and sales. In addition, the quality security management of manufacturers, the implementation of traceability system of supply chain and the effective supervision of the government over supply chain were also given attention in the project. Through the research on the common technology in the traceability system of aquiculture products, the operating system of the aquatic product traceability system and relevant products were developed integrally; the criterions for tracing source needed in system operation were formulated, and the operating mechanism of the traceability system of the aquiculture products was put forward. Besides, according to the disposition of the Fisheries Bureau of Ministry of Agriculture, the construction of traceability system has been listed in the plan of the quality security management of aquatic products in Guangdong Province. Cooperating with aquatic technique popularization stations, the pilot verifications have been made in Guangdong. In the light of requirements, the pilot enterprises submitted the basic information and data of production, management and supervision for survey and training. After the initial verification, the feasibility of the research result has proved, which lays the solid foundation for the access to practicality stage. At “Foodstuff Quality Security Accreditation and Source Tracing International Workshop” and “Experience Exchange Conference on Quality Security Traceability System of Primary Products” held this year, the Quality Standard Research Center of our Institute, as the only representative of aquatic industry, introduced its research achievements, further establishing the status of our Institute in the research of traceability system of aquatic products.