Novel and continuous scientific and technical breakthroughs increase value and efficiency in aquaculture

Abstract

The efficiency of aquaculture in producing high-quality fishery or aquatic products can be significantly improved with methodological breakthroughs and conceptual innovations.¹ The increasing exchanges and cooperations among aquaculture scientists and enterprisers since 2022 should further provoke the idea and technical innovation for the sustainable development of aquaculture. During a visit to Australia in 2023, Dr. Qingchao Wang, a junior editorial board member of this journal and one of the two authors of this editorial, visited functional food exhibitions with aquatic products and discussed about offshore aquaculture and gene editing development with Australian scientists.

Coincidently, in this issue, it is found that these topics are well reflected, with articles also covering aquatic animal diseases, immunity, genetics and breeding, nutrition utilisation and feed sources, microbiome and homeostasis, fish exercise and deformities, bioflocs, and sustainability.

It is of interest to note that offshore aquaculture in deep sea has recently been a focus of mariculture development in China, which could overcome multiple limitations in coastal waters. In this issue, Dong et al.² summarised the advancements and hurdles of deeper offshore aquaculture in China. The authors illustrated the existing 40 sets of offshore aquaculture infrastructure and also pointed out that the current development trajectory is struggling to meet its goals in increasing production and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, environmental management of offshore aquaculture is recognised as important for its sustainability. In this issue, Simone and Vopel³ addressed the importance of proactive environmental management by incorporating solute exchange measurements in offshore aquaculture. They argued the necessity to define the metabolic capacity of the receiving environment and to quantify the organic assimilation capacity of the seafloor. As concluded in the article, a comprehensive understanding of settled farm wastes with broad measurements including geochemical and macrofauna community metrics, diagenetic models and predictive modelling should be important to give farmers confidence to expand their production sustainably.

The CRISPR-Cas9-based gene editing has been tested in several species of fish in aquaculture, which is considered as potential for creating varieties of species for aquaculture, and in this issue, genetic breeding of oyster and kelp is also analysed. Gene-edited organisms may become ideally suitable for environmental sustainability by improving animal welfare, nutritional attributes and farming efficiency; however, the application of gene editing may be also challenging in terms of public acceptance, sustainability and regulation, and so forth. Robinson et al.⁴ provided a framework for risk–benefit analysis with nine key considerations, including genetic impacts, ecological impacts, disease risk mitigation, nature of edit, supply chain environmental footprint, animal welfare, human nutrition, ethical business implications and impacts on local communities, as a guide to assess the use of gene editing in aquaculture. The evaluation on the potential benefits and harms of gene editing in aquaculture should be considered by scientists as well as the industry, and to a large extent in society in general.

Nutrient utilisation is also a key determinant in aquaculture efficiency, which needs fundamental and further research and requires the exploration of new feed materials including microalgae. In this issue, Bu et al.⁵ gave an overview on the history and achievements in aquaculture nutrition research and feed industry in China. Importantly, these authors proposed the direction for the development of feed industry towards environmental friendliness, safety, intelligence and cost-effectiveness.

It is generally accepted that aquaculture can provide nutritional and valuable products, some of which can even be developed into functional food supplements. However, aquaculture is facing challenges with new farming systems, novel biotechnology and feed processing techniques, which can further significantly improve aquaculture efficiency. The practical application of scientific and technical breakthroughs in aquaculture should also be evaluated from a sustainability point of view, which may be important for social awareness and acceptability of future aquaculture.