Presenter: Melissa Pelaez

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed email: mpelaez@rsmas.miami.edu

As population continues to rise there is a growing demand for seafood. Currently, half of all the seafood consumed is harvested from the aquaculture industry. As demand for seafood continues to grow and pressure from overfishing reaches its limits the reliance on aquaculture will continue to increase. Unfortunately, aquaculture has suffered from poor industry standards and because of this bad reputation much of the new technology has not been capitalized on due to a fear of unsustainable practices. This paper will bring to light the potential sustainability of an ecosystem based approach to aquaculture, integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA). IMTA mimics an ecosystem by setting up an aquaculture facility based on organisms from different trophic levels. The species are arranged in a manner where the organic and inorganic wastes of the highest trophic level species, for example fish, can be further broken down by species lower on the trophic level, for example mussels. Furthermore, plant species lower on the trophic level, such as seaweed, breaks down the inorganic wastes. This practice increases efficiency by using wastes productively as nutrients for other aquaculture species. By examining different case studies focused on IMTA in research facilities as well as in commercial production this paper will show that IMTA is a highly potential sustainable aquaculture approach. Not only does IMTA addresses excess waste in aquaculture facilities, but provides more sources of income through the harvest of two or more different species for the market.