Animal Science Receives Grant Funds

Ernie Chang has received two California Sea Grants, one to study biotechnical techniques for improving crustacean growth, for $243,858, and a second one, studies of the growth-stimulating potential of recombinant bovine growth hormone in the aquaculture of tilapia and shrimp for $94,800.

Joy Mench received a grant from USDA-NRI for $170,000 to study behavioral activity in broiler chickens and its effects on the incidence of skeletal problems.

Mary E. Delany was awarded $5,000 from the UC Davis Academic Senate Faculty Research Grant Program to study avian telomere sequences. She also received a $500 Teaching Grant Award from the Teaching Resources Center for purchase of equipment for her Avian Development and Genetics course. Delany, Ralph Ernst and Jim Thompson (Dept. of Biological and Agricultural Engineering) won two grants to study the effects of C02 on developing turkey embryos, one for $25,000 from the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association and one for $3,000 from the Pacific Egg and Poultry Association.

Dennis Hedgecock won a USDA grant for $230,000 to study the genetic and physiological bases of hybrid vigor in oysters and another from the California Department of Water Resources, for $598,086, to study microsatellite DNA for managing and protecting endangered Central Valley Chinook salmon.

Anita M. Oberbauer, Tom Famula and Bernie May received $40,764 to study the development of a genetic marker for idiopathic epilepsy in the Belgian Tervuren, from the American Kennel Club.

In addition to this grant on Belgian sheepdogs, Bernie May has garnered close to $1,800,000 in nine other grants from a variety of state and federal wildlife management agencies, some with other principal investigators, all dealing with the genetics of various fish species, from salmon and trout to sturgeon and suckers. May's studies focus on the population structure of threatened and endangered species, linkage of molecular markers to traits of interest in aquaculture species and the impact of toxicants on the gene pools of native fish. One, for example, is an award from the CALFED Bay-Delta Program for which Joe Cech from Wildlife, Fisheries and Conservation Biology is the principal investigator and Serge Doroshov, Gary Moberg and May from Animal Science are co-investigators.