Sea urchin cultivation: controlling energy flow between somatic and gonadal growth

摘要

Sea urchin gonad or roe is a luxury food product that is highly prized in many European countries and in the Far East. Increasing demand and the high market value of these echinoderms over the last 10 years has resulted in recent landings of 110,000tons per annum from wild sea urchin fisheries. Over-exploitation of the natural stocks has caused the market to fail to meet consumer demand. As a consequence, some countries have introduced very strict harvesting regulations. In other regions urchins with poor or variable quality roe are landed, making it difficult to guarantee both price and supply. The quality of the gonads is extremely important; premium prices are only paid for high quality produce of the correct color, texture and flavor. In Japan, roe that is most similar to that of native species fetches the best price. It is the unsatisfied demand for good quality roe together with declining landings that has stimulated interest in increasing sea urchin production through cultivation. Currentresearch in echinoculture now focuses on a range of topics from optimizing larval and juvenile culture conditions to developing growout technology and improving the quality of the final product, in particular roe color, through the development of prepared feeds.