Editorial special issue: Emerging and disruptive technologies for aquaculture

In the past few decades, aquaculture has been one of fastest growing sectors in agriculture. Since 2014, aquaculture has produced more fish for human consumption than wild-caught fish (FAO, 2016). The rapid development of aquaculture has been enhanced by the application of science and the introduction of new technologies. It is anticipated that the global population size will be 9.7 billion by 2050. Further increase in aquaculture production may be the only way to meet the human requirement for high-quality protein and omega-3 fatty acids. Novel emerging and disruptive technologies, including genomic selection,genome editing, information/digital technology, solar energy, and novel marketing strategies with blockchain are being applied in many sectors of agriculture. The applications of these technologies in aquaculture lag far behind the agriculture sector. We expect that in the coming years,many emerging and disruptive technologies will be applied in the aquaculture industry, which will lead the industry to be considered more green, sustainable and profitable.

It is our pleasure to present this special issue “Emerging and disruptive technologies for aquaculture” to readers of Aquaculture and Fisheries. We have selected seven reviews and four research papers from authors from China, USA, Indonesia, India, Singapore, UK, Australia and Mexico. The contributions cover several aspects of emerging and disruptive technologies in aquaculture, representing the latest progress,thoughts and ideas. It is unfortunate that in this special issue, there is no manuscript on oral vaccine development, cell-based proteins, offshore farming, 3D printing, and recirculating aquaculture systems. Here, we briefly highlight the important points of each paper of this special issue.

The review of Yue and Shen (2022) briefly introduced emerging and disruptive technologies, including alternative proteins and oils to replace fish meal and oils, offshore farming, recirculating aquaculture systems, oral vaccination, genome editing, artificial intelligence,blockchain for marketing and internet of things. The authors suggested some ideas to incorporate these technologies into aquaculture in order to increase the sustainability and profitability of the industry. The article of Luo et al. (2022) reviewed commonly used computational approaches and tools in designing sgRNA for gene/genome editing and assessed their outcomes. This research provided a broad overview of CRISPR-based applications in farmed fish, which will enable the use of genome editing programs to accelerate aquaculture breeding. The paper of Qin et al. (2022) describes a study on metabolomics and transcriptomics on gill of GIFT tilapia under different salinities challenged for three and half months. About 1000 differentially expressed genes(DEGs) were identified. Many DEGs were involved in osmo-regulation.Some pathways, including biosynthesis, energy or transport and metabolism, were over-represented. In addition, the authors found that in gill, 23 metabolites responded significantly under various salinity challenges. This study sets a solid foundation for further analysis of osmo-regulation in gill of tilapia. The review from Fu and Yuna (2022)focused on important traits, phenotyping and recent development of phenotyping platforms in aquaculture breeding. The authors argued that phenotyping is now a bottleneck in aquaculture breeding. The authors outlined the current state and problems in establishing phenomics platforms in aquaculture, as well as some ideas for the development of new phenomics platforms. According to the authors, automated imaging, machine vision, diode frame measurements, and deep learning networks will be useful in the creation of phenomics platforms.Outbreak of diseases continues to be a major challenge for the aquaculture industry. Yang et al. (2022) presented the current information of the NNV (nervous necrosis virus), host responses to NNV infection,diagnostic methods and current vaccines available for NNV disease.They also summarized the present state of NNV resistance breeding,both based on traditional and molecular breeding. The article also explained how to improve NNV resistance through breeding for the future of aquaculture. Authors believed that genome editing will play an important role in improving NNV resistance in aquaculture. The paper from Yu et al. (2022) described the development of a LAMP (loop--mediated isothermal colorimetric amplification) protocol to detect SGIV(Singapore grouper iridovirus) on-site. The developed LAMP assay is very simple and rapid. It includes only one step (i.e., incubation at 63 ℃ for 1 h and checking results with the naked eye). Fish infected with SGIV were detected with the color change from yellow to pink. The sensitivity of this LAMP was 1000 times higher than that of PCR. Thus, the LAMP assay is sensitive and can be used to detect iridovirus in aquaculture sites. The review from Al fiko et al. (2022) pointed out the potential of insect meals to replace fishmeal and raised some issues of using fishmeal in aquaculture feeds. The authors described eight insect species, which are approved by EU to be used in animal feeds. They summarized the current situation of using these insect species’ meals in aquafeeds. They talked about how to make insect meals a key source of protein in aquaculture in the future. They predicted that large-scale insect cultivation and processing will have a positive impact on aquaculture’s sustainability and profitability in ten years or more. In marine aquaculture offin fish, live feeds play a critical role. Although some advances in live feeds have been made, it is still very challenging to find the proper live feeds for new marine aquaculture fish (especially at the hatchery stage-larvae/ fingerlings). Regina Melianawati et al. (2022) determined the influence of feeding copepods and rotifers on thyroid hormone (T3 and T4) activity on the metamorphoses of coral trout larvae. The authors found that live feeds consisting of copepods and rotifers affected thyroid hormone activity. Copepods had a better potential in accelerating the metamorphosis achievement of coral trout larvae by increasing the Iodine level. Nowadays, nanotechnologies have started to be applied to increase aquaculture production. The review from Fajardo et al. (2022)analysed the situation of nanotechnology in the field of aquaculture and fisheries, emphasizing not only current applications, and future prospects, but also the ethical and governance aspects associated with this topic. Machine learning has been increasingly applied in many aspects of industry. The article from Nair and Domnic (2022) described a combined strategy included a non-learning enhancing method and deep CNN (convolutional neural networks) for picture reduction and reconstruction in underwater imaging in aquaculture. The suggested model outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods in terms of picture enhancement, compression, and reconstruction quality. Kulkarni and Edwards (2022) conducted a detailed analysis of the consequences of offshore energy development on a wide range of marine species using available published data. Their research found that the influence of energy development on species abundance, pollution, biodiversity behavior, and migration are the main concerns for aquatic species. The scientists found that offshore energy development has no long-term influence on most marine species, but it does have short-term effects such as disturbance of navigation and feeding patterns, as well as habitat destruction. They advised that using sonic deterrent during construction and enforcing protected areas are vital for minimizing short-term damage.

We are very happy that many young scientists contributed to this special issue, especially from developing countries. Although some of their thoughts and ideas might still need more research for its confirmation, we strongly believe that further development of the aquaculture industry needs innovative thoughts and ideas from young scientists. We hope that the aquaculture/ fisheries community will find this special issue insightful and useful for the future development of both industries.As guest editors of this special, we are grateful to all the authors for their contribution. We also thank all reviewers for their careful evaluation of articles sent to them and constructive suggestion for their improvement.We especially thank Editor-in-Chief of Aquaculture and Fisheries Professor Gui for handling reviews for several articles in this special issues.Finally, we are glad to acknowledge Aquaculture and Fisheries for supporting this special issue.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Junhong Xia: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing, Calling and reviewing papers, Writing – original draft, Writing – review &editing. : Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing, Calling and reviewing papers, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.Giana Bastos Gomes: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing,Calling and reviewing papers, Writing – original draft, Writing – review& editing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.