December 02, 2022
Valuable mussel spat tracked to Ahipara reef
Moana Project scientists have traced the source of the mussels fueling Aotearoa’s $380 million aquaculture industry to reefs located around Te Oneroa-a-Tōhe/Ninety Mile Beach.
The green-lipped mussel industry is largely reliant on wild-caught baby mussels, known as spat, that wash up onto the beach attached to seaweed.
Knowing the source of spat is important because it means agencies can work with hapū and iwi to establish a regime of protection that will benefit everybody.
Victoria University postdoctoral fellow Romain Chaput says mussels spend up to six weeks as larvae, which means that they can be transported hundreds of kilometres before they land on a beach.
However, use of ocean modeling data and genetic analysis showed spat landing on Te Oneroa a Tohe, which is similar genetically, but distinctly different from mussels from other parts of Aotearoa, is most likely to come from nearby mussel reefs off Ahipara and to a lesser extent from Tiriparepa / Scott Point and Hokianga.