Novel nuclear barcode regions for the identification of flatfish species.

The development of an efficient seafood traceability framework is crucial for the management of sustainable fisheries and the monitoring of potential substitution fraud across the food chain. Recent studies have shown the potential of DNA barcoding methods in this framework, with most of the efforts focusing on using mitochondrial targets such as the cytochrome oxidase 1 and cytochrome b genes. In this article, we show the identification of novel targets in the nuclear genome, and their associated primers, to be used for the efficient identification of flatfishes of the Pleuronectidae family. In addition, different in silico methods are described to generate a dataset of barcode reference sequences from the ever-growing wealth of publicly available sequence information, replacing, where possible, labour-intensive laboratory work. The short amplicon lengths render the analysis of these new barcode target regions ideally suited to next-generation sequencing techniques, allowing characterisation of multiple fish species in mixed and processed samples. Their location in the nucleus also improves currently used methods by allowing the identification of hybrid individuals.

Global seafood consumption footprint.

To ensure food security and nutritional quality for a growing world population in the face of climate change, stagnant capture fisheries production, increasing aquaculture production and competition for natural resources, countries must be accountable for what they consume rather than what they produce. To investigate the sustainability of seafood consumption, we propose a methodology to examine the impact of seafood supply chains across national boundaries: the seafood consumption footprint. The seafood consumption footprint is expressed as the biomass of domestic and imported seafood production required to satisfy national seafood consumption, and is estimated using a multi-regional input output model. Thus, we reconstruct for the first time the global fish biomass flows in national supply chains to estimate consumption footprints at the global, country and sector levels (capture fisheries, aquaculture, distribution and processing, and reduction into fishmeal and fish oil) taking into account the biomass supply from beyond national borders.

Transport temperatures observed during the commercial transportation of animals.

Current temperature standards and those proposed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) were compared with the actual practices of commercial transport in the European Union. Temperature and humidity records recorded for a year on 21 vehicles over 905 journeys were analysed. Differences in temperature and humidity recorded by sensors at four different positions in the vehicles exceeded 10°C between the highest and lowest temperatures in nearly 7% of cases. The number and position of temperature sensors are important to ensure the correct representation of temperature conditions in the different parts of a vehicle. For all journeys and all animal categories, a relatively high percentage of beyond threshold temperatures can be observed in relation to the temperature limits of 30°C and 5°C. Most recorded temperature values lie within the accepted tolerance of ±5°C stipulated in European Community Regulation (EC) 1/2005. The temperature thresholds proposed by EFSA would result in a higher percentage of non-compliant conditions which are more pronounced at the lower threshold, compared to the thresholds laid down in Regulation (EC) 1/2005. With respect to the different animal categories, the non-compliant temperature occurrences were more frequent in pigs and sheep, in particular with regard to the thresholds proposed by EFSA.

Animal welfare monitoring and livestock traceability during transport.

The authors present an experimental project that aims to establish an effective navigation system in accordance with European Council Regulation 1/2005 concerning animal welfare during transport. The prototype created during the project consists of both hardware and software components. An onboard unit is installed at truck level. It collects and transmits real-time information of the animal transport to a remote receiver database. A Web/geographic information system (GIS) application is used to analyse and monitor the information received. The architecture of the hardware and software of the project is presented, focusing on the features of the Web-GIS application.