Tanzania: New bioinformatics tool will aid tilapia aquaculture

New bioinformatics tool will aid tilapia aquaculture. A new genomics marker tool has been shown to accurately identify tilapia species and tell apart their hybrids, providing a novel resource to help develop aquaculture and empower conservation in Tanzania, Africa. Crucially, the new tool offers a cheaper solution than full genome data analysis – the current approach to monitoring local biodiversity. Led by the Earlham Institute, alongside the Tanzania Fisheries Research Institute, Roehampton University, Bangor University, the University of Bristol and the University of East Anglia in the UK, the new genomics marker tool enables tilapia species identification and pinpoints hybridisation between invasive and native tilapia species. Tropical inland aquaculture production has increased rapidly in recent decades to 47m tonnes in 2018. Tilapia, a group of cichlid fish dominated by the genus Oreochromis and native to Africa and the Middle East, have been a key part of this expansion – ...