Biological Sciences

Aquaculture of Lugworms in the Falklands

In the Falkland Isles there is a need to diversify the industry from farming, tourism and fishing to other areas including aquaculture.

An aquaculture program has been established, supported by the Falkland Isles Development Corporation, to investigate brown trout for sale and to grow the native Zebra trout to boost the numbers in the wild. In addition, polychaete worms have been identified by a scoping project as another aquaculture species.

This project aims to investigate the feasibility of culturing local species of lugworms which could then be processed for fish and crustacean aquaculture feeds. Arenicola marina which is present in the UK and Europe is one of the most studied lugworms and is grown commercially. The lugworm in the Falklands (shown in Figure 1) is a subspecies which has not been studied in depth before.

Figure 1
Preserved specimen of the lugworm

The current collection site for this species is Whale Bone Cove (figure 2 below).

Figure 2
Wreck of the Lady Liz at Whale Bone Cove

The aims of this research are to:

• Investigate the culture of this species and identify the optimum conditions required
• Understand biology of this species including its reproductive cycle
• Investigate the ecology of this species to inform the culture including densities relating to particle size data and tidal height