Avoiding the ecological limits of forage fish for fed aquaculture

Froehlich, Halley E.; Jacobsen, Nis Sand; Essington, Timothy E.; Clavelle, Tyler; Halpern, Benjamin S.

doi:10.1038/s41893-018-0077-1

Cited by 124 publications

(109 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…This finding is reinforced elsewhere in the current literature (Hollmann 2013;Hindelang et al 2014;Forchino et al 2017;Cohen et al 2018;Mauceiri et al 2018;Jaeger et al 2019). The relative contribution of aquafeed is also relevant to the environmental impacts, particularly because there is a current thrust to develop fish meal and oil-free aquafeed alternatives due to decreasing forage fish populations and increasing prices (Tacon and Metian 2008;Naylor et al 2009;Froehlich et al 2018). Regionality has the potential to influence electricity and heat usage, where in warmer climates less heat and electricity for supplemental lighting must be utilized compared to colder and darker locations.…”

Section: Environmental Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…Table 1 is presented in CO 2 E for the sake of comparability. Questions have also been raised as to whether the currently utilized suites of impact categories capture critical aspects of seafood production, such as resource depletion due to overfishing for forage fish (Froehlich et al 2018). Bohnes and Laurent (2019) reviewed LCAs of aquaculture studies and found that in 98% of the studies CO 2 E was utilized as an impact category, whereas abiotic depletion was applied in only 22% of the studies published.…”

Section: Environmental Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regionality has the potential to influence electricity and heat usage, where in warmer climates less heat and electricity for supplemental lighting must be utilized compared to colder and darker locations. The relative contribution of aquafeed is also relevant to the environmental impacts, particularly because there is a current thrust to develop fish meal and oil-free aquafeed alternatives due to decreasing forage fish populations and increasing prices (Tacon and Metian 2008;Naylor et al 2009;Froehlich et al 2018). These feeds commonly utilize fish alternatives such as terrestrial animal by-products, plant-based proteins and lipids, seafood byproducts, insects, and single-cell oils (Naylor et al 2009;Oliva-Teles et al 2015;Basto-Silva et al 2019;Le Feon et al 2019).…”

Section: Environmental Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bohnes and Laurent (2019) reviewed LCAs of aquaculture studies and found that in 98% of the studies CO 2 E was utilized as an impact category, whereas abiotic depletion was applied in only 22% of the studies published. Questions have also been raised as to whether the currently utilized suites of impact categories capture critical aspects of seafood production, such as resource depletion due to overfishing for forage fish (Froehlich et al 2018). This suggests that a broader suite of impact categories must be considered going forward.…”

Section: Environmental Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sustainable Seafood and Vegetable Production: Aquaponics as a Potential Opportunity in Urban Areas

Ghamkhar

Ashton

et al. 2019

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

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Global population growth will increase pressures on current food systems in order to supply adequate protein and produce to the increasingly urban world population. The environmental impact of food production is a critical area of study as it influences water and air quality, ecosystem functions, and energy consumption. Aquaponics (in which seafood and vegetables are grown in a closed‐loop system) has the potential to reduce the environmental impact of food production. A review of the current environmental and economic considerations is provided in order to identify current research gaps. Research gaps exist with respect to 1) diversity of aquatic and plant species studied; 2) inconsistent bounds, scope, and lifetime across studies; 3) diverse allocation of the environmental and economic impacts to the coproducts; 4) scale of systems considered; 5) transportation of produced food; and 6) presence of heavy metals, pests, and pathogens with human health implications. These aspects require increased attention to close the existing gaps prior to widescale deployment of these systems for increased sustainable food production toward satisficing human needs. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2019;00:1–12. © 2019 SETAC

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Section: Environmental Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 71%

Section: Environmental Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Environmental Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Environmental Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Sustainable Seafood and Vegetable Production: Aquaponics as a Potential Opportunity in Urban Areas

Ghamkhar

Ashton

et al. 2019

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

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“…(approximately 6.18 million MT) of the global aquafeed production (approximately 39.62 million MT) in 2012 [5], it consumed 31% (approximately 1 million MT) of the fishmeal in aquaculture (IFFO, personal communication, 2018). Global fishmeal production is around five million MT annually, and its future production may be affected by an increasing demand, climate change, and variability (e.g., El Niño) [9,12,21]. In response, shrimp feed manufacturers have decreased the inclusion of fishmeal from a global range of 19-40% in 2000 to 11-23% in 2014, while the global fish oil inclusion range stabilized (around 0-2%) (IFFO, personal communication, 2018).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sustainability Conundrum of Fishmeal Substitution by Plant Ingredients in Shrimp Feeds

Malcorps

Kok²,

Land³

et al. 2019

Sustainability

110

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Aquaculture is central in meeting expanding global demands for shrimp consumption. Consequently, increasing feed use is mainly responsible for the overall environmental impact of aquaculture production. Significant amounts of fishmeal are included in shrimp diets, causing dependency on finite marine resources. Driven by economic incentives, terrestrial plant ingredients are widely viewed as sustainable alternatives. Incremental fishmeal substitution by plant ingredients in shrimp feed was modeled and effects on marine and terrestrial resources such as fish, land, freshwater, nitrogen, and phosphorus were assessed. We find that complete substitution of 20-30% fishmeal totals could lead to increasing demand for freshwater (up to 63%), land (up to 81%), and phosphorus (up to 83%), while other substitution rates lead to proportionally lower impacts. These findings suggest additional pressures on essential agricultural resources with associated socio-economic and environmental effects as a trade-off to pressures on finite marine resources. Even though the production of shrimp feed (or aquafeed in general) utilizes only a small percentage of the global crop production, the findings indicate that the sustainability of substituting fishmeal by plant ingredients should not be taken for granted, especially since aquaculture has been one of the fastest growing food sectors. Therefore, the importance of utilizing by-products and novel ingredients such as microbial biomass, algae, and insect meals in mitigating the use of marine and terrestrial resources is discussed.

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Forage Fish Species Prefer Habitat within Designated Offshore Wind Energy Areas in the U.S. Northeast Shelf Ecosystem

et al. 2023

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As the world develops sources of renewable energy, there is an intensifying interest in offshore wind energy production. The Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf (NES) ecosystem has favorable wind dynamics, with active development of wind energy. In this study, we present species distribution models that consider both occupancy and biomass responses for a broad spectrum of fish and macroinvertebrate taxa (n = 177). Building upon prior analyses, habitat was differentiated into overall and core habitats based on statistical distributions of habitat scores. Overall habitat was used to show each species' regional distribution based on fishery‐independent survey captures between 1976 and 2019, whereas core habitat represented where the focus of the species' abundance was located as a subset of overall habitat. Wind energy developments may modify the water column in ways that impact lower‐trophic‐level productivity; therefore, added attention was given to the response of forage species. Over 20% of species showed preferential use of putative and potential wind development areas, including a disproportionate number of forage taxa. Principal usage varied by season, with forage species like Atlantic Menhaden Brevoortia tyrannus and Atlantic Mackerel Scomber scombrus preferentially using the lease areas in spring and Round Herring Etrumeus teres and longfin inshore squid Doryteuthis pealeii using lease areas in autumn. For species with relatively low usage of the lease areas, there was a tendency for the usage related to overall habitat to be lower than usage for core habitat; in contrast, for species with high usage of the lease areas, that usage was higher for overall habitat than for core habitat. The area of habitat tended to have positive trends across species, with these positive trends being disproportionately higher among forage taxa. These results frame the importance of wind lease areas for species in the NES, particularly forage taxa that fulfill many important ecological functions.

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Avoiding the ecological limits of forage fish for fed aquaculture

Cited by 124 publications

References 44 publications

Sustainable Seafood and Vegetable Production: Aquaponics as a Potential Opportunity in Urban Areas

Sustainable Seafood and Vegetable Production: Aquaponics as a Potential Opportunity in Urban Areas

The Sustainability Conundrum of Fishmeal Substitution by Plant Ingredients in Shrimp Feeds

Forage Fish Species Prefer Habitat within Designated Offshore Wind Energy Areas in the U.S. Northeast Shelf Ecosystem

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