IFREMER PMMB
Introduction
Ifremer is the largest French institution involved in marine research (1500 people) through research centers and stations in mainland and overseas.
IFR-PMMB (Mollusc Experimental Platform of Bouin)
Infrastructure: IFR-PMMB (Mollusc Experimental Platform of Bouin)
Location: Bouin, FRANCE
Web site address: www.ifremer.fr
Contact: Christophe Stavrakakis (christophe.stavrakakis@ifremer.fr), head of research unit. Virginie Le Razavet (virginie.le.razavet@ifremer.fr), manager of the experimental platform.
Facilities
PMMB offers one 2000 m2 infrastructure located on the Bourgneuf bay, which independent units for research on shellfish, including experiments from the larval level to the adult size.
The 3 units are:
1- ENA: Experimental Nursery Area: it includes 2 raceways of 7 m3 with 13 slieves positions each (potentially 26 shellfish families), running with settled seawater, filtered (10 µm), disinfected with UV rays and degassed in a pack column. Shellfish spat is continuously fed with Skeletonema marinoï microalgae. The unit is provided with ambient water temperature.
2- EBA: Experimental Breeding Area for chemical and biological experimental contaminations: 1 experimental room of 15 m2 and 1 microalgae production room supplied with controlled water quality (sand filtration at 30 µm, cartridge filter at 0.2-5 µm, UV disinfection and temperature regulation) and all facilities (air, tap water, CO2, …). Each room can be equipped with tanks for experimental breedings with different capacities (from 5 liters to 800 liters). Effluents of this area can be treated by a high performance medium lamp UV device or can be retained in a specific tank of 5 m3. All rooms are air-conditioned, and unit can be provided by regulated temperature.
3- WER: Water treatment Experimental Room: this room of 40 m2 can accept water treatment devices supplied continuously with controlled seawater quality (see previous section). Treated water can be tested then with experimental breedings. This room is supplied with all facilities too.
Services currently offered by the infrastructure
The system is suitable to complete any kind of experiments setting up breeding from the larval stage to the adult size. ENA is equipped with a continuous measurement device of water quality parameters (pH, O2, turbidity and salinity). EBA is an experimental unit suitable for research on all stages of the life cycle of shellfish. For the 3 units, different analytical devices are available to characterize biological cells as microalgae (spectrophotometer, fluorimeter, particle counter), shellfish larvae and gametes (flow cytometry) and bacteria / viruses (microbiological analyses on petri dishes).
Ifremer staff will advise the TNA users in the experimental set-up including system preparation, shellfish supplying and acclimatization. During the experiments, it will continue to support the TNA user, including daily care, sampling and (temporal) storage of samples. In addition, when appropriate, some of ifremer’s the staff possesses legal permits to experiment on animals.
The EBA unit can receive experiment on contaminant effects, it’s equiped with a specific retention device for effluent.
Modality of access
Location of work: Bouin, France (PMMB)
Duration of work: On average each user or user group is expected to stay at most 42 days at the infrastructure.
The performance units are suitable for long-term experiments (depending on species and proposition of the TNA user), based on fish performance under different culture conditions, as described above.
Unit of access
Unit of access: 1 m2/week
The actual number of system weeks of a particular TNA thus depends on the experimental design.
A typical TNA experiment uses experimental tanks (from 50 to 800 l) by experimental room (14 to 30 m2) for a total period of 9 weeks (2 preparation, 6 experiment (as 42 days), 1 cleaning), resulting in 100 unit of access by project. The actual number of system weeks of a particular TNA thus depends on the experimental design.
Specify what is included in one unit of access:
A unit of access typically includes assistance with tasks that cannot be performed by the TNA user, or by the TNA user alone. This includes:
– Preparation of the work; set-up of the systems, acclimatization of the shellfish, protocols, legal permission to work with live animals,
– Daily work on the experiment itself according to the protocol; check on the systems and shellfish (mortality record), work on the experiment, the use of collection of data, backstopping during weekends, alarm service,
– Sampling for the experiment: samples of water and shellfish, according to the protocol, – Analyses of data when this is part of the TNA,
– Providing of ifremer hatchery spats.