Abstract

Culture of the freshwater yabby (Cherax destructor) forms the basis of a small, but developing, aquaculture industry in Australia. Currently, however, aquaculture of the yabby is primarily based on broodstock sourced from local wild populations. To date there has been very little attempt to domesticate the yabby, or to increase productivity through genetic improvement. As a first step in the process of developing a strain of yabby optimised for aquaculture, we have evaluated the relative growth performance of 2100 juvenile yabbies bred from five wild populations for three traits (ie, weight, tail width and tail length). Significant differences were found in the expression of these traits among populations. For example, average weight and tail length at 12 months differed among the fastest and slowest growing populations by up to 44% and 13%, respectively. Differences in growth among populations suggests that valuable initial genetic gains can be made by utilizing individuals from the faster growing populations as base generation animals for a selective breeding program.

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