The populations of mussels, salmon and sea lice will be
monitored for several years. (Photo: Stock File/FIS) Sea lice
pests could be treated with mussels: study Thursday, June 30,
2011, 23:30 (GMT + 9) University of Maine researchers have
demonstrated that the blue mussel can eat larvae of the
parasitic sea louse that has been decimating farmed finfish
stocks. The results could be highly useful for Maine’s farmed
salmon industry. The findings were published recently in the
journal Aquaculture. If further analysis in the field supports
these first findings, mussels could be used as another disease
management strategy for weakening the infectious pressure of sea
lice in finfish farms, as the pest has become resistant to
drugs. The paper could also be good news for Maine’s development
of integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA), an alternative
to the standard mono-culture aquaculture. IMTA lowers the
environmental impacts of commercial aquaculture by combining fed
species, such as salmon, with extractive spec