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We can farm more seafood while minimizing its impact on biodiversity, U-M research shows
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By building up capacity in strategic places, mariculture operations, like this one shown in a Chilean fjord, can help feed the planet’s growing population while reducing their impact on marine biodiversity, according to new research led by the University of Michigan. Image credit: Gordon Leggett/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0
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New research led by the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) shows that people can farm more food from the seas while shrinking mariculture's negative impacts on biodiversity. Mariculture, which is the branch of aquaculture that farms saltwater seafood, accounted for about one-fifth of the food farmed from fisheries in 2020 and has been growing rapidly to meet the increasing demand for seafood.
The study, led by Deqiang Ma, a postdoctoral researcher at SEAS, predicted the impact of such growth by developing an adaptable model to assess mariculture's effects on the populations of more than 20,000 species. The findings showed best-case and worst-case scenarios at the global scale for expanding mariculture to meet productivity targets in terms of its cumulative impact on biodiversity, revealing the importance of strategic planning for mariculture to have a sustainable future.
The senior study author is SEAS Associate Professor Neil Carter as well as an international team of researchers.