Martin Thiel

Gustavo Lovrich

"Much of the biological and other research efforts on crustaceans have been driven by their importance to humans as a food source. Production comes from a diverse array of methods and scales of extraction, from small recreational or subsistence fisheries to industrial scale operations. Most crustacean catch comes from shrimp fisheries with over two million tonnes taken in 2014, mainly by trawl. The genera Acetes, Fenneropenaeus, and Pandalus account for around three quarters of this catch. Crab, krill and lobster are the other main crustacean products (around 600,000 t crab, 380,000 t krill and 300,000 t lobster in 2014). Trends in crustacean fisheries are broadly similar to those of other seafood although crustaceans often target different market segments and receive higher prices than fish. Crustacean fisheries management faces many challenges with management of bycatch from trawl gears especially significant. Fortunately, crustaceans tend to be easily handled with low discard mortality and this has enabled widespread use of regulations based on size, maturity or sex (e.g., male-only fisheries). Total allowable catch (TAC) limits are widely used and highly effective for ensuring sustainable harvests when set responsibly using good information. TAC systems are often combined with catch share or individual transferable quota systems which had a mixed history in crustaceans, sometimes reducing overall community benefit. This parallels the challenge facing fisheries globally of ensuring that harvests are not only sustainable but also deliver benefits to the wider community beyond the commercial fishers; management of some crustacean fisheries are at the forefront of these developments"--

Volume 9

Fisheries and Aquaculture

This is the ninth volume of ten in the The Natural History of the Crustacea Series. The chapters in this volume synthesize the diverse topics in fisheries and aquaculture. In the first part of the book, chapters explore worldwide crustacean fisheries. This section comes to a conclusion with two chapters on harvested crustaceans that are usually not within the focus of the mainstream fisheries research, possibly because they are caught by local fishing communities in small-scale operations and sold locally as subsistence activity. In the second part of the book, the authors explore the variety of cultured crustacean species, like shrimps, prawns, lobsters, and crabs. Chapters in the third part of the volume focus on important challenges and opportunities, including diseases and parasitism, the use of crustacean as bioindicators, and their role in biotechnology.

Gustavo Lovrich

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