Transitioning from wild seed fishery to Seed Mussel Collectors (SMCs): Reviewing the efficiency of collectors for seed provisioning in mussel bottom culture

The availability of mussel seed is a critical aspect in mussel farming. Since 2009, the Dutch mussel sector has been transitioning from wild seed fishery to suspended seed collectors (Seed Mussel Collectors, or SMCs). Collector systems using either ropes or nets as settlement substrate are placed in Oosterschelde Bay, the Wadden Sea, and the North Sea annually. We analyzed detailed harvest data from 2010 until 2022, to investigate the efficiency of different systems, identify differences between years and areas, and assess how production can be optimized. Additionally, numerical density, biomass, and shell lengths of mussels from 0.375 mm shell length were recorded on SMC ropes at one SMC location during a full growth season to evaluate biomass-density relations and assess the process of self-thinning on the ropes. Total harvest of SMC mussel seed increased over the period 2010–2022, from 8.0 ×10⁶ kg to 21.0 ×10⁶ kg fresh weight. Harvest per unit substrate was remarkably stable over the years across sites, with a lower mean in Oosterschelde Bay (∼2.56 kg m⁻¹) than in the Wadden Sea (∼3.28 kg m⁻¹). Ropes were found to provide a greater yield per unit area than nets, but nets are less labor-intensive to use. Occurrence of density-dependent growth on the ropes was indicated by the allometric relation between mussel biomass and mussel density. A positive relation between density and growth rate suggested that competition increased with growth rate. In the growth data covering a full SMC season, we first observed a rapid numerical increase as newly settled mussels continued to grow into the measured size range. This was followed by a period of rapid numerical reduction and increasing biomass, indicating self-thinning. Finally numerical reduction stabilized and biomass increase accelerated coupled with comparatively slower shell length increase. The self-thinning occurred between approximately 2.3 mm and 11.6 mm mean shell length. Our analysis of 12 years of production data shows that SMC seed is a robust and annually more reliable alternative to wild capture fishery as a seed provisioning resource for mussel culture. Production per unit substrate does not appear to be easily amenable to further improvement. Production per unit area showed no indication of overstocking on the scale of the SMC plots, suggesting that production gains could be made by increasing substrate density.