A snail’s pace: A preliminary analysis of the effects of stress and genetics on movement of Haliotis

Abstract

Aquaculture producers' desire animals that are better able to tolerate and survive stress, but selecting animals with these traits is hampered by a lack of reliable stress indicators in aquatic organisms. Here we undertake a preliminary study to explore behavioural response, in terms of distance travelled, under differing stress histories, in greenlip abalone Haliotis laevigata. Movement trials were performed on labelled abalone of known pedigree relationships by measuring distance and direction travelled in a grid marked slab tank with unidirectional current. Animal and sire models were fitted to the data using a Markov chain Monte Carlo multi trait generalised linear mixed effect model. Di..