Direction of salmon aquaculture development in the world

Abstract

The growth of the world's population implies the search for alternative sources of nutrition. One such area is the development of aquaculture. The world aquaculture, as well as other branches of agriculture, has gone through stages of its formation from farming by primitive methods to use of modern technologies. Salmon farming occupies an important place in industrial fish farming, and the volume of farmed products is increasing every year. This review summarises the main milestones in the salmon aquaculture industry, describes the trends that have guided breeding programmes and shows the genetic approaches that have been used in fish farming. The introduction of genetic methods in salmonid fish breeding depends on the level of development of the countries where fish farms are located. Abroad there is a great experience of investment policy aimed at creation and introduction of projects up to the final (operational) stage of introduction of molecular genetics methods into salmon breeding, including the use of genomic selection. While in Russia the concept of genetic improvements in aquaculture is only being discussed.  In this review an important place is given to generalisation of the accumulated material on genetic methods of salmonid fish research, as well as directions of application of genetic markers in salmon farming. The issues of searching for candidate genes, quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with gaining muscle weight and fish resistance to diseases are discussed.  The directions and ways of solving breeding problems are shown. Intensive development of scientific approaches to aquaculture development abroad is a vector for setting goals to expand business investment in the development of molecular genetic approaches to salmonid fish breeding in Russia.