Fisheries and aquaculture

Fisheries science is one of the main institutional mandates of ISMAR, aimed at managing and understanding the problems linked to fisheries.

This is a multidisciplinary science involving several disciplines including oceanography, marine biology, marine conservation, ecology, population dynamics, economics and management, to draw an integrated picture of fisheries. The biology of the different species, their abundance, their ecosystems and, finally, the technical solutions for the reduction of the impact of fishing gears are essential for the management and sustainable use of marine resources.

Aquaculture, referred to as mariculture when practiced in marine environment, represents another target topic of ISMAR, developed to sustain the increasing exploitation of  wild products from fisheries. In particular, it involves farming of freshwater and saltwater organisms such as finfish, molluscs and crustaceans under controlled conditions. The researchers are aimed to identify new species to be farmed and new farming technologies as well as to assess and mitigate the impacts induced on the marine ecosystems.