Recently, mass mortality of the young abalone Haliotis discus hannai has occurred in commercial seed production farms in Korea. The mortality rate was above 50% of the total cultured organisms in the farm, and the shell length of the moribund organisms was about 3cm. The mortal phenomenon was that the young abalones were weakly scattered on the bottom of the pond from the attachment matrix, or that they could not be moved back to their normal positions. The diseased farmed Pacific abalone had abdominal edema. From the edema in the moribund individuals, three bacterial strains were isolated and all the strains were identified as Vibrio harveyi. These strains were compared with thirty six strains isolated from the fish. The results was that the Vibrio harveyi from the fish were sorted into genogroup A or B; however, the three strains of the diseased farmed Pacific abalone were sorted into genogroup A and the new genogroup C. The identical mortality and pathological symptoms of the naturally infected organisms were reproduced by artificial infection with WA AG-1 and WA CS-5 strains. The LD50 of WA AG-1 and WA CS-5 were each 1.0×103 cfu animal-1 and 1.7×104 cfu animal-1.

In abalones, interspecific hybridization has been suggested as a possible means to increase production and desired traits for the industry. In Korea, Haliotis gigantea is considered a species with a larger size and higher temperature tolerance than H. discus hannai. However, H. discus hannai is considered the most valuable and popular fishery resource due to its better acceptance and higher market prices. Thus, viable interspecific hybrids have been produced by artificial inseminating H. gigantea eggs with H. discus hannai sperm. However, the reciprocal hybrid cross was not successful. In this study, the hybridity and the growth and thermal tolerance performance of the interspecific hybrids were examined. A combination of various assays revealed maximum growth occurrence at 21℃ and the higher growth rate in the hybrids than that of H. discus hannai parent. In addition, the growth and survival at high-temperature (28℃) of the hybrids was equivalent to that of the highly tolerant H. gigantea parent, suggesting new possibilities to overcome the mass mortality in H. discus hannai during high temperature periods of summer season in Korea. Furthermore, the induced interspecific hybrid status was confirmed by the presence of species-specific bands for each parental species of the random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) profiles using universal rice primer (URP), which could be used as speciesspecific markers to distinguish the hybrids and their parental species.

생존율은 염분과 관계없이 8℃, 10℃일 때는 98.7~100%였으나, 4℃일 때는 생존율이 25~55%로 나타났다. 혈림프액 내 SOD와 glutathione 농도와 같은 스트레스 지표는 모든 염분구에서 4℃, 6℃일 때 높게 나타났다. THC, hemocyte population, apoptotic cell및 necrotic cell의 비율은 염 분 별로는 26 psu구에서 가장 높게 나타났고, 4~6℃일 때 다른 실험구에 비해 유의하게 높았 다. 이러한 결과들은 26 psu의 염분과 6℃ 이하의 수온에서는 참전복의 스트레스 반응이 증가 하였으나, 30, 34 psu의 염분과 8, 10℃의 수온에서는 대조구와 차이가 없어, 참전복의 수송을 위한 적정 수온 및 염분 조건은 8~10℃, 30~34 psu인 것으로 나타난다.