The award was presented by Mary Coughlan TD Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food and Eamon Ryan TD Minister of Communications, Energy & Natural Resources at a ceremony in Dublin.  Nearly €20 million worth of Governments grants to fund new marine research projects in Ireland was announced with UCC researchers being successful in sharing awards of some €14.8 million. The awards, named after Irish hydrographer Francis Beaufort, will fund 141 researchers and students working in 5 research consortia, across 5 institutions.

The award of €2.71 million will employ a Principal Investigator and two Senior Researchers for seven years, plus one PhD at UCC.   Initial focus will be on Atlantic salmon, brown trout, cod and lobster using conventional and emerging (such as SNPs and candidate gene) DNA technologies.  Wild stocks of all of these species are of great commercial interest in Ireland and western Europe in general, and a novel study of Genetic Stock Identification is currently being conducted at UCC and will be greatly expanded.  All four species are also extensively cultured and the genetic threats to biodiversity of wild populations from interactions with cultured strains, whether deliberately released (in stocking exercises) or inadvertently introduced (in farm escapes) will be investigated, using a combination of common garden or reciprocal field experiments and relevant laboratory analysis.

Partners in this all-Ireland consortium will be Drs Paulo Prodohl and Walter Crozier of Queens University Belfast, underpinning many years of successful cooperation.   Dr Phillip McGinnity of the Marine Institute, who has particular expertise both in field and laboratory techniques, was central to preparing this proposal, and he and Dr Ken Whelan will be involved in its progress, particularly in relation to the unique field facilities and archival samples available at the MI county Mayo centre.

Picture shows L-R: Mary Coughlan TD Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries & Food; Eamon Ryan TD Minister for Communications, Energy & Natural Resources; Professor Tom Cross, UCC

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