Artemia Reference Center
Ghent University
Bio:
Patrick Sorgeloos has a PhD in marine biology and set up the Artemia Reference Center at Ghent University in Belgium in 1978. He has been involved in brine shrimp Artemia projects (exploitation of natural resources as well as controlled pond production) in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia. Until his retirement as emeritus professor in 2013 over 350 Master (from > 50 countries) and 70 PhD alumni (from > 20 countries) graduated at Ghent University in the field of aquaculture. As Past-President of the World Aquaculture Society, and co-founder and board member of the European Aquaculture Technology & Innovation Platform, Patrick is a strong promoter of international networking in aquaculture and is still involved with many international aquaculture organizations. He was co-founder of the Ghent University spin off company Artemia Systems that is now operating under the name of INVE Aquaculture. He received honorary awards in China, Egypt, Greece, India, Malaysia, Russia, Thailand, USA, and Vietnam.
Title: Great Salt Lake Artemia: A Crucial Live Food for Farm-raised Shrimp and Fish Worldwide as well as an Exemplary Model of Sustainable Production
Abstract: Great Salt Lake in Utah is not only one of the biggest salt lakes in the world, but also by far, the most important source of brine shrimp Artemia (the sole zooplankton developing in dense monocultures at high salinities where food competitors or predators cannot survive).
Artemia plays crucial roles in wildlife survival (as food for millions of migrating birds) but particularly also in the fish/shellfish farming (aquaculture) industry. Each autumn and winter several thousand tons of Artemia cysts (0.5-mm inactive embryos in late gastrula stage) are harvested from the Lake, processed, dried, and packed in cans to be shipped around the world to fish and shrimp hatcheries. The microscopic, small Artemia babies (called nauplii) that can be hatched out from these “dried cysts” within 24-hrs incubation in seawater, are used as a suitable substitute for natural live plankton in the feeding of a wide variety of marine and freshwater crustaceans and fishes.
Over the past decades, hatchery aquaculture has expanded rapidly on all continents and GSL Artemia cysts are responsible for approximately 40-50% of the world’s provision of cysts, which are used in larval rearing of over 900 billion fries of different aquatic species that eventually yield more than 10 million tons of seafood produced in the aquaculture industry.
Over the past 20 years, local government authorities as well as private companies have been involved in a multidisciplinary effort to better understand the hydrology, biology, and ecology of Great Salt Lake. This has resulted in the formulation of specific legislative measures and management practices to ensure a sustainable harvest of this important biological resource and to safeguard the long-term future of Great Salt Lake.