Aquaculture

Professor M. Afzal Khan is serving as In-charge, Section of Fishery Science and Aquaculture at the Department of Zoology, A.M.U., Aligarh. He is working primarily on natural resource management and population dynamics of freshwater teleosts with an emphasis to identify species and stock-specific calcified structure(s) for precise fish age and growth estimation, and to delineate stock(s) of freshwater teleosts mainly from the Ganges. He has visited the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich to work on biological characteristics of fossil otoliths. Rupees 94.6 Lakh funding from UGC, DST-SERB and CST-UP has supported research work at his laboratory. Five Ph.D. and 3 M. Phil. degrees, and 46 MSc project dissertations have already been awarded under Prof. Khan's supervision. One PDF has also successfully completed her research project under Prof. Khan's guidance. Students from other universities visit his laboratory either for summer internship or to get training in Prof. Khan's specialized area of research. Prof. Khan, for his doctoral dissertation, worked at Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Mumbai on field experiments of aquaculture, fishmeal-free diet development for carp fry, broodstock nutrition and multiple carp breeding. His research findings appear mostly in SCI indexed and impact factor journals published from Elsevier Science, Wiley-Blackwell, CSIRO, Taylor and Francis, Nature Portfolio, Springer, etc. Based on publications, Prof. Khan has the distinction of leading the pioneering research group in the country working on estimation of precise fish age and analysis of otolith microchemistry for fish stock identification. Prof. Khan has visited Spain and Taiwan to present his research findings in the prestigious "International Otolith Symposia". He has also presented his research findings in the prestigious World Fisheries Congress, which was held at Adelaide in September 2021. The American Fisheries Society supported his participation in the WFC. Also, his students visited Australia/The Netherlands/South Korea/Taiwan/Oman for research activities with travel funding from respective foreign agency.