Interference of Non-native Species with Fisheries and Aquaculture

Abstract

Fisheries and aquaculture in developing countries are primarily a way of producing and providing daily food for millions of the world’s poorest people and thus contribute significantly to the fabric of local economies. In other countries, fisheries are also valued for sport fishing activities. However, these types of both food and sport activities rely heavily on the use and thus the introduction of non-native species. Although this is true for both marine and freshwater species, it is far more prevalent in the freshwater fish farming trade than across all other taxa. Asia has used the potential of available species cultured abroad more than any other region in the world, but as most of the cultured species are Asian, this still represents a small proportion of their fisheries and aquaculture economic activity. The proportion of species farmed that are non-native is the greatest in North and South America, Europe, and Oceania (mean = 36 %, 35 %, 43 %, and 34 %, respectively). In terms of production alone, Europe and the former USSR represent the largest production of non-native species (i.e., 62 % of world non-native production, all taxa included). It is extremely difficult to objectively evaluate the cost of non-native species on ecosystem services and the cost of non-native fish species as part of the production of fish for food, which represents about 95.3 % of the global non-native aquatic species production across the world (>81 M tonnes/year) and barely reaches €0.04 M/year. With a growing human population, new challenges are on the horizon, notably the increase and diversification of production using novel technologies (e.g., GMOs) whilst limiting negative side effects and additional costs.