Celebrating 25 years in 2025
The latest gathering of European Lobster Center of excellence (ELCE) members saw lobster experts from across the globe come together in Portugal at the Aquaculture Horizons 2025 conference, an international conference and exhibition of aquaculture and fisheries. Nic and NLH alumni Dr Carly Daniels and Dr Charlie Ellis, joined our esteemed ELCE colleagues and friends for 3 days at Setubal University in Portugal to learn, network and share recent research findings.
The 3 days became even more memorable when the power shortages occurred mid conference! Despite no network, power, running water or crucially air con in the heat (!), presentations continued and a more discussion style programme followed as the aquaculture world shared their passion for their work despite the challenging logistics!
One of the presentations was that of Dr Charlie Ellis; who shared the initial findings from our recent project with UOE, GEMALOR. Dr Charlie Ellis shared “It was great to be able to present our fresh results. The meeting was extremely well attended by members of the European and Australian lobster aquaculture research community, so it was excellent to be able to share our findings with such a relevant audience, as well as learn about what other researchers at the cutting edge of our field have been investigating recently. Through GEMALOR, we’ve found no evidence that the type of genetic bottlenecking that has been reported in many finfish hatcheries –where released juveniles come from too small a breeding stock, causing inbreeding depression in the wild– affects lobster stocking, nor that hatchery lobsters have reduced the stock’s crucial genetic diversity in long-term release zones. We did discover that there is big variability in the success of individual broodstock in terms of offspring survival and growth in hatchery systems, however, a finding with relevance to hatchery management and with clear implications for the nascent grow-out lobster aquaculture industry. Between conference sessions there was also lots of discussion between delegates about potential synergies in our work and future collaboration opportunities, so all in all it was a great forum for our work and hugely beneficial to attend.”
The conference also saw members of the ELCE come together thanks to funding from the Nordic Minister Council. And once the power returned a dinner was arranged for the ELCE network to get together and share ideas and chat about all things lobster! The meal saw 18 representatives from Denmark, Norway, Portugal, UK and Istanbul come together for the first time since the last ELCE conference held at the NLH in Padstow in May 2022. The dinner even attracted our Australian peers who work on spiny lobster, who we last saw in Perth, Australia, at the International conference and workshop on Lobster Biology and Management (ICWL) conference in Oct 2023. Dr Carly Daniels said, ‘The ELCE network has been invaluable over the years, giving those working with the European lobsters a platform to share experiences and expertise and also to discuss and present research findings. From the first meeting held in Padstow in 2013 to the recent 7th official ELCE meeting in Portugal ELCE has grown to become a key event in the European lobster experts diaries and the NLH are proud to be one of the founding members of this’.
Some ELCE members Day 1 of the conference
