Super shrimp could increase yield and prevent disease

Single-sex prawns could help alleviate poverty, reduce disease and protect the environment, according to researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) who have developed a monosex prawn that may make this winning trifecta possible.

In a groundbreaking study in Nature's Scientific Reports, the BGU group highlights the development of a "super shrimp" which, for the first time, only produces female offspring. The emergence of an all-female population could both increase aquaculture yields as well as serve as a natural agent to prevent the spread of harmful, water-bound parasites.

To achieve an efficient biotechnology for all-female aquaculture in the economically important prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii), the researchers achieved – for the first time – WW males using androgenic gland cells transplantation which caused full sex-reversal of WW females to functional males. Crossing the WW males with WW females yielded all-female progeny lacking the Z chromosome.

"We were able to achieve the monosex population without the use of hormones or genetic modifications and thus address two major agricultural considerations: monosex populations and ecological concerns," says Levy. "Prawns serve as efficient biocontrol agents against parasite-carrying snails. And since we can now use monosex prawns, which do not reproduce, it reduces the hazard of prawns becoming an invasive species."