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SafeGuard. Work package 3.5 Bioinvasion of the Pacific Oyster (Crassostrea gigas) in the Wadden Sea
Project
Project code: keine Angabe
Contract period: 01.01.2008
- 31.12.2013
Purpose of research: Applied research
The blue mussel (Mytilus (M.) edulis) was increasingly suppressed by the spread
of the Pacific Oyster (Crassostrea (C.) gigas) in the Lower Saxony and Dutch
Wadden Sea in the past three decades. The concerns hereby occurred are both,
regarding the blue mussel industry as well as food safety aspects of blue mussels
and pacific oysters for human consumption. C. gigas settles predominantly
on intertidal Mytilus-beds and subsequently create rigid reef-like structures.
Consequently, C. gigas may have directly or indirectly influence on cultivated
areas of blue mussels in the wadden region, by the invasion process itself and by
microbial and/or chemical risks. Whereas the primary production of classified
blue mussel culture areas is regularly controlled by state laboratories according
to the EU regulation VO(EG) 854/2004 the wild reefs of Pacific Oysters are not
under control of official control programmes for food safety aspects. Moreover,
since an increasing temptation of an uncontrolled collecting and marketing
of pacific oysters in the wadden sea has been observed, a risk assessment
of microbial and chemical hazards in Pacific Oysters is needed. The aim of
the Safe Guard Project “WP 3.5” is to elaborate actual data on the status of
the bioinvasion process in the wadden and to create a suitable database on
consisting of relevant biological, microbial, and chemical parameters, analyzed
in oysters and adjacent mussel beds for comparison. A sampling scheme was
therefore designed which regards both spatial and seasonal distribution to attain
a representative coverage.
During 2010 and 2011 samples have been taken from 13 designated
localisations in the Lower Saxony Wadden Sea region for ecological, chemical
and microbiological investigations. According to the characterized spatial
distribution of oyster beds in the Dutch Wadden Sea 8 locations have been
selected for mussel and oyster collection. The ecological data on the abundance,
biomass and population dynamics of C. gigas and M. edulis at each location
were elaborated. With respect to the food safety parameters a total number of
n=325 samples in the Lower Saxony Wadden sea and a total number of n=45
samples the Dutch Wadden Sea area, resp., have been collected. With respect to
the Dutch Wadden Sea additional data from the National monitoring for Shellfish
Food Safety has been used in this project.
Section overview
Subjects
- Animal health
- Special animal species
- Food Chemistry
- Food microbiology
Funding programme
Excutive institution
Lower Saxony State Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (LAVES)
