The Auburn University Shellfish Laboratory (AUSL) opened in 2003 on Dauphin Island, Alabama. The lab’s mission is to better understand the value of natural environments and promote best practices that lead to sufficient and sustainable shellfish production which in turn supports harvesters, growers, producers, distributors, and consumers of shellfish. Over the past two decades, the laboratory has graduated 18 masters and 4 PhD students. The research group currently consists of 9 full-time employees and 5 graduate students. Facilities include laboratories for microbiology and flow cytometry, sample processing, and digital imaging, an indoor wet lab, temperature controlled broodstock and spawning rooms, an open-air hatchery and nursery, and two off-bottom oyster aquaculture research farm sites, located in Grand Bay, AL and Bayou Sullivan, AL.
AUSL leads applied research projects involving all life stages of the Eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, throughout the production cycle. Research projects include: broodstock conditioning, biomarkers of gamete quality, increasing resilience through genomic selection, assessing performance of lines and ploidies in variable environments, use of aquaculture for restoration, hardening or priming to increase tolerance to stressors, oyster behavior and physiology in response to environmental stressors, phytoplankton community monitoring, seafood safety, bird interactions with floating oyster gear, sudden unexplained mortality events, and probiotics. AUSL also leads a workforce development program for Mississippi and Alabama.
Future plans for AUSL include collaborative establishment of an oyster broodstock breeding program for the Gulf of Mexico. AUSL also aims to expand research on oyster health and disease, including oyster immunology and oyster-microbial interactions. The lab will continue to collaborate with groups throughout the United States to produce oysters for research, extension, and outreach, and provide support for the commercial oyster aquaculture industry.