Global and Regional Determinants of Diversity in Blue Foods

Abstract

Blue foods are highly diverse and are supported by a wide range of ecosystems, production practices, and markets. This diversity influences resiliency of aquatic food systems, their capacity to contribute to global food security, and the spread of knowledge and adoption of innovations. Here, trends in diversity and determinants of diversity in capture fisheries and aquaculture production were examined at the global and country level. Results show that fisheries production is more diverse than aquaculture production, and that social and economic factors appear to be as important for species diversity as biophysical factors. The diversity of fisheries is diminished when governance is weak, and this poses challenges for managing fisheries for nutrition-sensitive food production. It also illustrates the greater potential of aquaculture to address challenges related to access given that less diversity in aquaculture is created by economies of scale making food more accessible among lower income groups.

Keywords:

• aquaculture
• capture fisheries
• food systems
• seafood
• species diversity

Data availability statement

The study uses publicly available data from the Food and Agriculture Organization FishStatJ and FAOSTAT databases (www.fao.org).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Norwegian Research Council (#320612 and #328724) and Hatch (#7001552 and #1015617).