World Aquaculture December 2019

WWW.WA S.ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • DECEMBER 2019 37 Notes Megan Davis is a Research Professor at Florida Atlantic University, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, 5600 US 1 North Ft. Pierce, Florida 34946 USA. E-mail: Mdavi105@fau.edu Yanelys Cantillo Villa, undergraduate student in the Biology Department, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia, was a 2019 Link Foundation Summer Intern at Florida Atlantic University, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. The summer internship conch breeding study was supported by the Link Foundation and the Aquaculture Specialty License Plate Program granted through the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute Foundation. The authors wish to thank Rich Mulroy, Richard Baptiste, Pete Stock, Chris Robinson and Paul Wills for their assistance with the IMTA system and breeding study and Anton Post for his valuable review of the article. A special thank you to Amber Garr (previously Amber Shawl) and Vanessa Sommers for their earlier work with the first author (Megan Davis) on the breeding and rearing of Florida fighting conch from eggs to juvenile stage for the commercial aquarium trade. References Bradshaw-Hawkins, V., and Sander, F. 1981. Notes on the reproductive biology and Behavior of The West Indian Fighting Conch, Strombus pugilis Linnaeus in Barbados, with evidence of male guarding. The Veliger 24(2):159-164. D’Asaro, C. N. 1965. Organogenesis, development, and metamorphosis in the queen conch, Strombus gigas, with notes on breeding habits. Bulletin of Marine Science 15(2):359-416. Davis, M. 2005. Species Profile: Queen Conch, Strombus gigas . Southern Regional Aquaculture Center Publication 7203, 12p. Davis, M., and Shawl, A. 2005. Fighting conch, Strombus alatus and Strombus pugilis : new food candidates for aquaculture. Proceedings of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute 56:770-772. Davis, M., Mitchell, B.A. and Brown, J.L., 1984. Breeding behavior of the queen conch Strombus gigas Linné held in a natural enclosed habitat. Journal Shellfish Research 4(1):17-21. Gillette, P. 2003. Effects of Different Diets and Sex Ratios on the Reproductive Output of the Florida Fighting Conch, Strombus alatus . Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution Internship Report. Laramore, S., Baptiste, R., Wills, P. S., and Hanisak, M. D. 2018. Utilization of IMTA-produced Ulva lactuca to supplement or partially replace pelleted diets in shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) reared in a clear water production system. Journal of Applied Phycology 30 (6):3603-3610. O’Dea, A., M.L. Shaffer, D. R. Doughty, T.A. Wake, F.A. Rodriguez. 2014. Evidence of size-selective evolution in the fighting conch from prehistoric subsistence harvesting. Proc. R. Soc. B 281:20140159. Perry, H. and K. Larsen. 2004. Strombus alatus Gmelin 1791, Florida fighting conch. A Picture Guide to Shelf Invertebrates from the Northern Gulf of Mexico. SEAMAP. Pg 192. RStudio Team 2015. RStudio: Integrated Development for R. RStudio, Inc., Boston, MAURL http://www.rstudio.com/. Ross, P.M., L. Parker, W.A. O’Connor and E.A. Bailey. 2011. The Impact of Ocean Acidification on Reproduction, Early Development and Settlement of Marine Organisms. Water 3:1005-1030. Shawl, A. and A. Spring. 2003. Culturing the Florida Fighting Conch Strombus alatus . Tropical Fish Hobbyist L1(5):94-97. Shawl, A., and Davis, M. 2004. Captive Breeding Behavior of four Strombidae Conch . Journal of Shellfish research 23(1):157-164. Shawl, A., Jenkins, D., Davis, M., and Main, K. L. 2005. Growth of Florida fighting conch, Strombus alatus , in recirculating systems. Proceedings of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute 56:774-780. Wills P.S., G. Beiser, J. Scarpa, M.D. Hanisak, S. Laramore and A. Garr. 2012. A new design concept for a land-based integrated multi-trophic aquaculture system. In: Rakestraw TT, and Lawson LS, editors. Proceedings of the ninth international conference on recirculating aquaculture, Department of Food Science and Technology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State College, Roanoke. Why are They Called Fighting Conch? Florida fighting conch have similar characteristics to queen conch in relation to sexual morphology, internal fertilization and eggmass laying. However, the Florida fighting conch demonstrates mating behavior unique to the species.Males will often guard an egg-laying female or copulating female andwill challenge anymale that attempts tomate with her. The challenge occurs in the formof a jousting tournament, with each combatant using their proboscis, or one male will use their shell to push anothermale away, hence the name “fighting” conch. FIGURE 17. Cultured juvenile Florida fighting conch for potential seafood markets (6 cm shell length). Photo: Tom Smoyer. FIGURE 18. Cultured juvenile Florida fighting conch for the aquarium trade (3 cm shell length). Photo: Tom Smoyer.