Shellfish aquaculture is a sustainable green industry and has an important role in food supply and food security throughout the world. Particularly, bivalve mollusc such as oyster and mussel aquaculture have been consider as one of the economic activities and contribute to blue economic growth to many nations. Despite having large diversity marine mollusc (>300 species) in Bangladesh coastal waters, knowledge regarding their culture potentiality is still scarce. OiLAB conducted a project, funded by the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI) that explored the opportunity, whether mussel (Perna viridis) based integrated mariculture system can be developed for Bangladesh coastal waters that can provide an income-generating option to coastal community for improving their socioeconomic conditions.
The project developed sustainable mussel culture techniques with a floating farm concept that has been successfully piloted and demonstrated in the south-eastern coast of Bangladesh. Additionally, this project developed an ecosystem based habitat suitability model as a decision making tool to identify suitable site for mussel aquaculture development. Moreover, this study provided valuable insights about the mussel spawning seasons and driving ecological factors. Two spawning peaks (i.e. December – January; and May – June) has been observed during the investigation periods. Increases in Chlorophyll-a concentration and fluctuations in salinity have been identified a vital ecological factors that triggered natural spawning. This knowledge can be utilized to collect wild spawners and prepare the breeding techniques for artificial spawning and hatching in captive conditions.