Using agent-based modelling to predict the role of wild refugia in the evolution of resistance of sea lice to chemotherapeutants

A major challenge for Atlantic salmon farming in the northern hemisphere is infestation by the sea louse parasite Lepeophtheirus salmonis. The most frequent method of controlling these sea louse infestations is through the use of chemical treatments. However, most major salmon farming areas have observed resistance to common chemotherapeutants. In terrestrial environments, many strategies employed to manage the evolution of resistance involve the use of refugia, where a portion of the population is left untreated to maintain susceptibility. While refugia have not been deliberately used in Atlantic salmon farming, wild salmon populations that migrate close to salmon farms may act as natural refugia. In this paper we describe an agent-based model that explores the influence of different sizes of wild salmon populations on resistance evolution in sea lice on a salmon farm. Using the model, we demonstrate that wild salmon populations can act as refugia that limit the evolution of resistance in the sea louse populations. Additionally, we demonstrate that an increase in the size of the population of wild salmon results in an increased effect in slowing the evolution of resistance. We explore the effect of a population fitness cost associated with resistance, finding that in some cases it substantially reduces the speed of evolution to chemical treatments

Modelling sea lice control by lumpfish on Atlantic salmon farms : interactions with mate limitation, temperature and treatment rules

Atlantic salmon farming is one of the largest aquaculture sectors in the world. A major impact on farm economics, fish welfare and, potentially, nearby wild salmonid populations, is the sea louse ectoparasite Lepeophtheirus salmonis. Sea louse infestations are most often controlled through application of chemicals, but in most farming regions, sea lice have evolved resistance to the small set of available chemicals. Therefore, alternative treatment methodologies are becoming more widely used. One increasingly common alternative treatment involves the co-culture of farmed salmon with cleaner fish, which prey on sea lice. However, despite their wide use, little is understood about the situations in which cleaner fish are most effective. For example, previous work suggests that a low parasite density results in sea lice finding it difficult to acquire mates, reducing fecundity and population growth. Other work suggests that environmental conditions such as temperature and external sea louse pressure have substantial impact on this mate limitation threshold and may even remove the effect entirely. We used an Agent-Based Model (ABM) to simulate cleaner fish on a salmon farm to explore interactions between sea louse mating behaviour, cleaner fish feeding rate, temperature and external sea louse pressure. We found that sea louse mating has a substantial effect on sea louse infestations under a variety of environmental conditions. Our results suggest that cleaner fish can control sea louse infestations most effectively by maintaining the population below critical density thresholds

Salmon lice should be managed before they attach to salmon : exploring epidemiological factors affecting Lepeophtheirus salmonis abundance on salmon farms

The ectoparasite Lepeophtheirus salmonis has for decades been a serious challenge to the sustainability of salmonid aquaculture and has the potential to disrupt the ecosystem of wild salmonids. To tackle this challenge, efforts have been made to develop effective lice control strategies that deter ectoparasitic infestations on salmon farms. Infestation control can be enhanced by understanding L. salmonis population dynamics that may reveal critical points at which to intervene. Here, we investigate the impact of key parameters affecting L. salmonis population dynamics on salmon farms with a view to informing L. salmonis management. We built a system dynamics model to simulate L. salmonis populations in a hypothetical Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) farm. Our model focused on three key parameters in the life cycle of L. salmonis: external pressure (rate of introduction of planktonic L. salmonis from outside the farm), attachment proportion (proportion of L. salmonis that successfully infest salmon), and treatment efficacy (proportion of L. salmonis that are killed as a result of treatment). By applying various combinations of plausible values for these three parameters, their modelled impacts on L. salmonis management were evaluated in terms of the total number of required treatments and the total infestation burden during a typical production cycle. These two modelled outcomes represent the cost of treatment and a proxy for other likely costs, such as lost growth or mortality caused by the parasite. Our results indicated that overall L. salmonis infestation levels were more sensitive to changes in the proportion of successful attachment, followed by changes in external pressure, and were least affected by changes in treatment efficacy. While attachment proportion and external pressure are involved at the pre-infestation stages in the life cycle of L. salmonis, treatment efficacy is involved in the post-infestation stages. Therefore, these findings suggest that preventing infestation before lice attach to fish is a more effective L. salmonis control strategy than treating already infested salmon. Overall, the presented results provide numerical evidence for the efficiency of prevention and support the development and application of prevention measures that have been on the rise in recent years

Embedded pitch adapters: a high-yield interconnection solution for strip sensors

A proposal to fabricate large area strip sensors with integrated, or embedded, pitch adapters is presented for the End-cap part of the Inner Tracker in the ATLAS experiment. To implement the embedded pitch adapters, a second metal layer is used in the sensor fabrication, for signal routing to the ASICs. Sensors with different embedded pitch adapters have been fabricated in order to optimize the design and technology. Inter-strip capacitance, noise, pick-up, cross-talk, signal efficiency, and fabrication yield have been taken into account in their design and fabrication. Inter-strip capacitance tests taking into account all channel neighbors reveal the important differences between the various designs considered. These tests have been correlated with noise figures obtained in full assembled modules, showing that the tests performed on the bare sensors are a valid tool to estimate the final noise in the full module. The full modules have been subjected to test beam experiments in order to evaluate the incidence of cross-talk, pick-up, and signal loss. The detailed analysis shows no indication of cross-talk or pick-up as no additional hits can be observed in any channel not being hit by the beam above 170 mV threshold, and the signal in those channels is always below 1% of the signal recorded in the channel being hit, above 100 mV threshold. First results on irradiated mini-sensors with embedded pitch adapters do not show any change in the interstrip capacitance measurements with only the first neighbors connected

Charge collection and field profile studies of heavily irradiated strip sensors for the ATLAS inner tracker upgrade

The ATLAS group has evaluated the charge collection in silicon microstrip sensors irradiated up to a fluence of 1×1016 neq/cm2, exceeding the maximum of 1.6×1015 neq/cm2 expected for the strip tracker during the high luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) period including a safety factor of 2. The ATLAS12, n+-on-p type sensor, which is fabricated by Hamamatsu Photonics (HPK) on float zone (FZ) substrates, is the latest barrel sensor prototype. The charge collection from the irradiated 1×1 cm2 barrel test sensors has been evaluated systematically using penetrating β-rays and an Alibava readout system. The data obtained at different measurement sites are compared with each other and with the results obtained from the previous ATLAS07 design. The results are very consistent, in particular, when the deposit charge is normalized by the sensor's active thickness derived from the edge transient current technique (edge-TCT) measurements. The measurements obtained using β-rays are verified to be consistent with the measurements using an electron beam. The edge-TCT is also effective for evaluating the field profiles across the depth. The differences between the irradiated ATLAS07 and ATLAS12 samples have been examined along with the differences among the samples irradiated with different radiation sources: neutrons, protons, and pions. The studies of the bulk properties of the devices show that the devices can yield a sufficiently large signal for the expected fluence range in the HL-LHC, thereby acting as precision tracking sensors

Study of surface properties of ATLAS12 strip sensors and their radiation resistance

A radiation hard nþ-in-p micro-strip sensor for the use in the Upgrade of the strip tracker of the ATLAS experiment at the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) has been developed by the “ATLAS ITk Strip Sensor collaboration” and produced by Hamamatsu Photonics. Surface properties of different types of end-cap and barrel miniature sensors of the latest sensor design ATLAS12 have been studied before and after irradiation. The tested barrel sensors vary in “punchthrough protection” (PTP) structure, and the end-cap sensors, whose stereo-strips differ in fan geometry, in strip pitch and in edge strip ganging options. Sensors have been irradiated with proton fluences of up to 1 1016 neq/cm2 , by reactor neutron fluence of 1 1015 neq/cm2 and by gamma rays from 60Co up to dose of 1 MGy. The main goal of the present study is to characterize the leakage current for microdischarge breakdown voltage estimation, the inter-strip resistance and capacitance, the bias resistance and the effectiveness of PTP structures as a function of bias voltage and fluence. It has been verified that the ATLAS12 sensors have high breakdown voltage well above the operational voltage which implies that different geometries of sensors do not influence their stability. The inter-strip isolation is a strong function of irradiation fluence, however the sensor performance is acceptable in the expected range for HL-LHC. New gated PTP structure exhibits low PTP onset voltage and sharp cut-off of effective resistance even at the highest tested radiation fluence. The inter-strip capacitance complies with the technical specification required before irradiation and no radiation-induced degradation was observed. A summary of ATLAS12 sensors tests is presented including a comparison of results from different irradiation sites. The measured characteristics are compared with the previous prototype of the sensor design, ATLAS07

Evaluation of the performance of irradiated silicon strip sensors for the forward detector of the ATLAS Inner Tracker Upgrade

The upgrade to the High-Luminosity LHC foreseen in about ten years represents a great challenge for the ATLAS inner tracker and the silicon strip sensors in the forward region. Several strip sensor designs were developed by the ATLAS collaboration and fabricated by Hamamatsu in order to maintain enough performance in terms of charge collection efficiency and its uniformity throughout the active region. Of particular attention, in the case of a stereo-strip sensor, is the area near the sensor edge where shorter strips were ganged to the complete ones. In this work the electrical and charge collection test results on irradiated miniature sensors with forward geometry are presented. Results from charge collection efficiency measurements show that at the maximum expected fluence, the collected charge is roughly halved with respect to the one obtained prior to irradiation. Laser measurements show a good signal uniformity over the sensor. Ganged strips have a similar efficiency as standard strips

Quantifying key parameters related to the life cycle of Caligus rogercresseyi

The salmon louse Caligus rogercresseyi (Boxshall and Bravo 2000) is a common ectoparasite of farmed salmonids in Chile. Sea lice can negatively impact the growth of hosts, adversely affecting aquaculture productivity. Unlike Lepeophtheirus salmonis (Krøyer, 1838), whose life cycle parameters have been well studied due to its importance in the Northern Hemisphere, for C. rogercresseyi no single source exists that quantifies the parameters required to model this ectoparasite's life cycle. Given that different species of sea lice have substantially different biological characteristics, it is important to parameterize the life cycle of C. rogercresseyi using appropriate observational data, rather than simply trying to adapt parameters developed for L. salmonis. Using data from existing literature, we quantified the development and survival rates for each stage in the C. rogercresseyi life cycle. We illustrate how development rates are affected by water temperature and explore the important impacts of salinity on rates of survival. We present equations that can be used to model development periods and survival proportions given certain water temperature and salinity profiles. While key parameters to quantitatively model the life cycle of C. rogercresseyi are presented, further research is required to adequately model the complete population dynamics of this ectoparasite on Chilean salmon farms and consequently to support decision-making to achieve effective control and mitigation

Proportion of resistant alleles in sea louse agent population for all scenarios.

<p>Top chart shows scenarios with no fitness cost and the bottom chart shows scenarios with a fitness cost of 1% per resistant allele. Lines show mean proportions of resistant alleles in the farm sea louse population based on 100 simulation replications. Grey bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. The white vertical “gaps” represent fallow periods. Proportions of wild salmon to farmed salmon for each scenario are shown in the legend, e.g. 1:10 is 1 wild for every 10 farmed.</p

General model parameters.

<p>In some cases, we based these parameter values on research in the literature. These sources are noted in the table. In all other cases, the parameters are plausible values based on expert opinion within our group and are based on field and/or laboratory observations of different populations within the North Atlantic.</p