74 JUNE 2025 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG the most familiar of these, this article will focus on conservation and restoration case studies, before concluding with an invitation to contribute to a recurring Aquaculture America session on these themes at the Las Vegas meeting in 2026. Examples “Conservation Aquaculture” has been employed in a broad sense to encompass many of the ways that aquaculture contributes to natural resource management (Froehlich et al. 2017). In a narrower sense, conservation implies preserving and protecting an existing resource that is at risk or in limited supply. Pillar coral Dendrogyra cylindrus is a Caribbean coral species that was severely affected by Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease beginning in 2014, especially in Florida. The species is now functionally extinct in the state, and colonies collected from reefs and moved to landbased facilities between 2015 and 2019 now represent the greatest conservation hope (Neely et al. 2021). As of March 2025, the status of pillar coral was changed from threatened to endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and active management of the hundreds of colonies housed in aquarium systems is ongoing, with one bright spot being induced spawning that is reliably achieved at The Florida Aquarium’s Coral Conservation and Restoration Center (Fig 1B, O’Neil et al. 2021). Offspring of these spawning events represent new genetic diversity that may someday contribute to recovery of wild populations. When they are eventually out-planted back to reefs, corals grown in either ocean- or land-based nurseries represent a form of aquaculture for habitat restoration. Another form that is increasing in application in Florida is restoration of nearshore hardbottom sponge communities, an extensive aquaculture activity that does not employ a land-based phase. Sponges provide important ecosystem services such Aquaculture is primarily thought of as a food production system. Indeed, MerriamWebster defines aquaculture as “the cultivation of aquatic organisms (such as fish or shellfish) especially for food” (Merriam-Webster.com 2025). This perception is entirely reasonable as no doubt the great majority of aquaculture globally is dedicated to provisioning nutrition for people. Of course, one of the aspects those of us engaged with aquaculture appreciate is its inherent diversity. Where I live and work in the state of Florida, the largest segment of our aquaculture industry is non-food producing. Ornamental fish, invertebrates and aquatic plants destined from home aquaria dominate Florida aquaculture, with $172 million in sales reported by farmers in calendar year 2021 (Hill and Yanong 2023). On a global scale, Duarte et al. (2022) provide a synthesis and suggest future directions for the >$11 billion seaweed industry, including increasing non-food uses such as cosmetics and biofuels, which currently consume a small percentage of total production. In addition to these examples of non-food aquaculture, its use for conservation, ecosystem restoration, and fisheries enhancements has been coalescing as a concept and practice in recent years. In fact, the USAS Chapter Article in the December 2024 issue of World Aquaculture, penned by Dr. Luke Gardner, touched on this topic and provided insightful thinking regarding integrating commercial and conservation aquaculture on the US west coast (Gardner 2024). And while cultured fishes have been released for stock enhancement for decades (Blankenship and Leber 1995), explicit discussion of aquaculture in academic journals such as Biological Conservation and Restoration Ecology is more recent (Froehlich et al. 2017, Patterson 2019). Figure 1 illustrates diverse stock enhancement, conservation, and restoration activities that employ aquaculture in various forms. As stock enhancement is U.S. AQUACULTURE SOCIETY CONTRIBUTED ARTICLE: Getting it Right: Conservation Aquaculture for Recovery, Restoration and Supplementation Joshua T. Patterson FIGURE 1. Examples of aquaculture for fisheries enhancement, conservation and restoration from Florida. A) Small juvenile red drum Sciaenops ocellatus being released into mangrove habitat for stock enhancement research, photo: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission; B) Pillar corals Dendrogyra cylindrus maintained in a system designed to induce their spawning via environmental parameter manipulation, photo: The Florida Aquarium; C) A multi-species sponge nursery located in the nearshore waters of Hernando County, photo: University of Florida.
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