Aquaculture of the Sciaenidae Family: Main Species Cultured Worldwide and Emerging Species in Latin America, Offering New Opportunities for Aquaculture Diversification

Abstract

Sciaenidae is the family of marine fish that has the highest aquaculture growth and production in the world. In this study, the global production, historical characteristics, biological aspects, and aquaculture technologies used for the Sciaenid species with the highest aquaculture production were compiled and analyzed to determine the success factors and bottlenecks that favored these species aquaculture development. This study also presents the state of technological aquaculture development in Sciaenid species in Latin America. The principal Sciaenid aquaculture species are large yellow croaker (Larimichthys crocea), red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) and meagre (Argyrosomus regius), which together contribute 99.9% of the global aquaculture production of Sciaenid species. The aquaculture success of these three species is attributed to their suitable biology for aquaculture, high consumer demand, good market prices, government support, and prior empirical and/or scientific knowledge with other species that was transferrable to Sciaenidae, however, the aquaculture development of these species has not been free of errors. Principal bottlenecks in development include poorly planned marine spatial planning, the introduction of exotic species, the excessive use of fresh seafood-based feeds (especially in China), and inadequate genetic selection programs. In Latin America, eleven Sciaenidae species with biological attributes similar to the three established aquaculture species are being investigated. The technologies for the totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi) and the Chilean croaker (Cilus giberti) are the most advanced. The technology developed and the positive and negative experiences of the Sciaenid aquaculture industry identified in this review should be considered to assist government decision-making for research and development of aquaculture in the family Sciaenidae.

Keywords:

• Sciaenidae aquaculture
• emerging species
• reproduction and larviculture
• success factors and bottlenecks
• world production

Acknowledgements

Collaboration between Ibero-American researchers has been done under the framework of the network LARVAplus “Strategies for the development and improvement of fish larvae production in Ibero-America” (117RT0521), Ibero-American Program of Science and Technology for Development (CYTED, Spain). To the Fujian Oceanographic Institute, and Xiamen University, China. The Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile. The Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, Parque Marino del Pacífico and the Sistema de Banca para el Desarrollo, Costa Rica. The funder bodies were not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit it for publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).