WWW.WAS.ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • JUNE 2025 75 as water filtration and habitat provision while also supporting commercial fisheries in some areas. Die-offs have occurred due to harmful algal blooms and sponge communities are slow to recover in part because their fragments, buds, or larvae do not disperse great distances. Figure 1C shows a section of sponge nursery where cuttings from donor sponges, which quickly heal, have been affixed to bricks and allowed to grow. Sponge restoration has been well-studied in South Florida (Butler et al. 2021) and is expanding to other areas of the state. Scaling up this practice will be an important next step, and recognizing oceanbased clonal propagation of these ecologically important species as a type of aquaculture could help to expedite that process. In any aquaculture application with objectives related to conservation, restoration, or fisheries enhancement, it is vital to acknowledge limitations and recognize the practice as one tool in the toolbox of environmental and natural resource management more broadly. Often, efforts to eliminate the stressors that have led to decline of a valued species or habitat are prerequisite for meaningful recovery. An effective monitoring program is also necessary to discern whether aquaculture-aided enhancements are contributing to desired outcomes. These topics, alongside the diversity and novelty of applications for aquaculture, have made this field a great fit for sessions at the annual Aquaculture America meeting. Conference The Aquaculture America meeting has long hosted sessions with titles like “Fisheries Conservation and Enhancements,” “Shellfish Restoration and Conservation,” and “Restoration Aquaculture,” sometimes co-occurring at the same conference. Historically the American Fisheries Society Fish Culture Section has also sponsored a stock enhancement session called “Getting it Right,” which typically focused on state and federal fisheries management. Beginning with the New Orleans Aquaculture America meeting in 2023, a decision was made to bring these related sessions together in “Getting it Right: Conservation Aquaculture for Recovery, Restoration, and Supplementation” (Figure 2). In each year since, the session has occupied all or most of a conference day and served as a gathering place for aquaculturists and our allies from across the globe to disseminate and discuss information related to this growing field. Despite limitations imposed on our federal friends and partners, the six co-chairs of the 2025 session attracted 18 abstracts and introduced a follow-on session called “Getting Connected: Building Bridges Between Conservation and Commercial Aquaculture,” which included an additional eight abstracts. As discussed in the December 2024 USAS Chapter article, integrating the commercial aquaculture industry with aquatic conservation and restoration initiatives will be vital to effective scaling. The 2026 Aquaculture America meeting with be in Las Vegas, and we look forward to a fourth edition of the reimagined “Getting it Right” session. I encourage anyone interested in checking out the session to attend and those working in any aspect of this area of aquaculture to contribute a presentation. There are significant opportunities and challenges in developing aquaculture for conservation, restoration, and fisheries enhancement. Continuing to build a community of scientists, practitioners, industry members, and resource managers will be vital to realizing the outstanding potential. Notes Joshua T. Patterson*, Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Program, School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatic Sciences, University of Florida/Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences. * Corresponding author: joshpatterson@ufl.edu References “aquaculture.” 2025. In Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved May 8, 2025, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ aquaculture. Blankenship, H. and Leber, K. 1995. A responsible approach to marine stock enhancement. American Fisheries Society Symposium. 15, 167-175. Butler, J., Sharp, W., Hunt, J. and Butler IV, M. 2021. Setting the foundation for renewal: restoring sponge communities aids the ecological recovery of Florida Bay. Ecosphere, 12(12), pp. e03876. Duarte, C., Bruhn, A., and Krause-Jensen D. A seaweed aquaculture imperative to meet global sustainability targets. Nature Sustainability, 5, pp. 185-193. Froehlich, H., Gentry, R., and Halpern, B. 2017. Conservation aquaculture: shifting the narrative and paradigm of aquaculture’s role in resource management. Biological Conservation, 215, pp. 162-168. Gardner, L. 2024. Commercial aquaculture flipping the script to help conservation groups. World Aquaculture, 55(4), pp. 50-51. Hill, J. and Yanong, R. 2023 (revised). Freshwater fish commonly cultured in Florida. UF/IFAS EDIS publication FA054, https://edis. ifas.ufl.edu/publication/FA054. Neely, K., Lewis, C., O’Neil, K., Woodley, C., Moore, J., Ransom, Z., Moura, A., Nedimyer, K. and Vaughan, D. 2021. Saving the last unicorns: the genetic rescue of Florida’s pillar corals. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8, p.657429. O’Neil, K., Serafin, R., Patterson, J. and Craggs, J. 2021. Repeated ex situ spawning in two highly disease susceptible corals in the family Meandrinidae. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8, p.669976. Patterson, J. 2019. The growing role of aquaculture in ecosystem restoration. Restoration Ecology, 27(5), pp. 938-941. FIGURE 2. Dr. Taylor Lipscomb (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) delivering the opening talk of the “Getting it Right: Conservation Aquaculture for Recovery, Restoration, and Supplementation” session at the 2023 Aquaculture America meeting in New Orleans.
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