Growth and survival of the giant clams, Tridacna derasa, T. maxima and T. crocea, at village farms in the Solomon Islands

Abstract

In this study, the authors report the results of large-scale grow-out trials for T. crocea, T. maxima and T. derasa at 11 sites in the Solomon Islands over 2 years. During these experiments, we evaluated the influence of environmental variables and husbandry on growth and survival, and used this information to identify optimum growing sites for these giant clams. The authors also used the biological data in a simple economic analysis of growing each species to two different sizes.