Development of genomic resources for African Catfish aquaculture towards improved breeding and genetic management in Nigeria

About the project

UK-registered Partner: Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling – Almas Gheyas
Africa-registered Partner: Spring Continental Harvest Ltd – Suleiman Isa

The Nigerian government has recognised aquaculture as a priority sector for development to alleviate poverty, improve food and nutrition security, and empower marginalised groups, particularly women.

African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) is the most important aquaculture species in Nigeria. Even though Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of catfish, the sector is technologically immature and suffers from numerous challenges including poor production efficiency, shortage of quality fingerlings, degradation of genetic resources, high cost of aquafeed, and many climate-change driven issues (e.g., water quality deterioration, diseases, and environmental stress).

The aim of the proposed project will be to develop genomic resources that can be utilised towards genetic resource management and improvement of African catfish breeding stock in aquaculture in a cost-effective manner. Towards this, low coverage sequencing will be performed on samples collected from diverse catfish populations followed by extraction of genetic variants and their characterisation.