Aquaculture in Costa Rica

Costa Rica may be a small country in land area (51,000 km2) but it has abundant freshwater resources from its mountain ranges, a tropical climate, and a marine exclusive economic zone of almost 600,000 km2 that make the country suitable for aquaculture development. Freshwater aquaculture began in the 1960s with the objective of promoting socio-economic development in rural areas by adopting technologies to produce introduced tilapia species Oreochromis mossambicus and Sarotherodon melanopleura (FAO 2016). In the decades that followed, experimental culture of rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss and freshwater prawn Macrobrachium rosenbergii was conducted (Galvez and Guenther 1987). Marine aquaculture began in the 1970s with the cultivation of the shrimps Litopenaeus vannamei, L. stylirostris and L. occidentales (FAO 2016, Nanne 1986). [More..]

Journal of the World Aquaculture Society Editor's Choice Awards for June 2019

The editors of The Journal of the World Aquaculture Society (JWAS) are pleased to announce the Editor's Choice Awards for the June 2019 issue of JWAS. [More..]

Editor's Note - The Promise of Cellular Seafood Production

To the list of methods of seafood production that include wild capture and aquaculture, we can now add cellular culture in sterile laboratories. The products of this process, which has even been called cellular aquaculture, are termed lab-grown, cell-based, cell-cultured, clean or in vitro seafood. Basically, the practices of biological tissue engineering are applied to the production of artificial muscle proteins that are then used as food. The product can be considered biologically equivalent to seafood obtained by traditional means. [More..]

Aquaculture offers an abundance of culinary options

It has become a truism that future growth of the supply of seafood will need to come from aquaculture. Yet only about 17% of the overall animal protein consumed worldwide in 2015 was from seafood (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2018). The greatest amount of animal protein consumed worldwide comes, of course, from terrestrial livestock production. What the future holds for the relative proportions of animal protein consumption between seafood and terrestrial livestock (or from lab-cultured meat for that matter) is unknowable. What we can discuss is how aquaculture/seafood fits into our present diets. [More..]

Abstracts for Asian-Pacific Aquaculture 2019 Published

The abstracts being presented for the June 19 -21 meeting in Chennai, India have been published to our website. Please take a moment to look at the program and plan your attendance schedule. [More..]

Journal of the World Aquaculture Society Editor's Choice Awards for April 2019

The editors of The Journal of the World Aquaculture Society (JWAS) are pleased to announce the Editor's Choice Awards for the most recent issue of JWAS. [More..]

Bringing aquaculture sustainability down to earth

In today’s world, there is no debate over whether aquaculture production should be managed in an environmentally responsible and sustainable fashion (Engle & D’Abramo, 2016). There is, however, on-going and considerable debate over what sustainable and responsibly managed aquaculture is, how it should be measured, and which species and/or production systems are “more sustainable.” Some authors view less intensive aquaculture production systems as more sustainable (i.e., semi-intensive pond production in Belton, Little, and Grady, 2009, and those who advocate for raising only filter-feeding species, polycultures, and integrated multi-trophic aquaculture). Others point out that intensifying aquaculture production results in fewer resources used per metric ton of production output (Bosma & Verdegem, 2011; Boyd et al., 2017; Boyd, McNevin, Davis, Godumala, & Mohan, 2018). [More..]

Editor's Note - Fifty Years of WAS: Looking Back, Looking Forward - Translated to Chinese

The World Aquaculture Society, at 50 years, is quite young compared to many other prominent professional societies, reflecting the relative newness of the field. The American Fisheries Society was formed in 1870 and the National Shellfisheries Association was established in 1908. Aquaculture as an area of scientific inquiry is rather young. The premier journal in the field, Aquaculture, published its first issue in 1972, not long after WAS was established. This article has been translated into Chinese for the benefit of all our members in China. [More..]

Journal of the World Aquaculture Society Editor's Choice Awards for February 2019

The editors of The Journal of the World Aquaculture Society (JWAS) are pleased to announce the Editor's Choice Awards for the most recent issue of JWAS. [More..]