Unlocking the intraspecific aquaculture potential from the wild biodiversity to facilitate aquaculture development

Abstract

Domestication of new candidate species remains a long and difficult process often resulting in unfruitful attempts. Early steps in most domestication programmes often consider species as a unity, disregarding a part of the biodiversity: the wild intraspecific geographic differentiation. Yet, this differentiation can shape local specificities, which could lead to different domestication predisposition or socio‐economic attractiveness between populations. Therefore, considering this population‐specific potential could facilitate domestication and subsequent production of new candidate species. Here, we propose a three‐step integrative approach to standardise and facilitate new domestication attempts by taking advantage of wild geographic differentiation. Step 1 consists of classifying the wild biodiversity to identify prospective units (i.e. groups of differentiated allopatric populations). Step 2 allows comparing performances of these units in standardised conditions (i.e. rearing system) through a multifunction and multi‐trait assessment. Finally, step 3 highlights units with higher aquaculture potentials through the calculation of an aquaculture potential score. This approach, here applied to fish culture for human consumption, also aims at being extended to other taxa (e.g. crustaceans, molluscs) and other production goals.

Finding a rare gem: Identification of a wild biological unit with high potential for European perch larviculture

“…Several proxies are suggested in Toomey et al (2020b). Here, the genetic proxy was chosen to perform an intraspecific classification.…”

“…a high aggressiveness towards conspecifics). This means that domestication processes can be enhanced by choosing the population(s) with the most suitable performances for aquaculture (Toomey et al, 2020b). It could especially be useful to help the diversification of the aquaculture production promoted by international institutions (e.g.…”

“…FAO 2018), which requires new species domestication (Teletchea and Fontaine 2014). A three-step integrative approach has been recently developed to facilitate the domestication of new species by taking into consideration geographic differentiation (Toomey et al, 2020b). The first step classifies wild populations by merging those that are most likely undifferentiated and by separating population groups for which aquaculture performance differentiation could be expected, the so called prospective units (PU; Toomey et al, 2020b).…”

“…Moreover, because the aquaculture potential (i.e. potential to be successfully domesticated and produced; Toomey et al, 2020b) of a fish stock relies on several trait expressions and biological functions, this assessment has to be based on a multifunction and multi-trait approach. Finally, the last step aims at identifying the unit with the highest potential for aquaculture through the weighting of the different traits evaluated (i.e.…”

When more is more: taking advantage of species diversity to move towards sustainable aquaculture

“…Thus, the choice of species can be based in part on their capacity to adapt to fluctuating feed availability and quality or climate change, which requires working on selection programs that consider genotype × environment interactions (Dumont et al ., 2014). This choice may require considering intraspecific differences among populations of farmed species because they can influence the efficiency and sustainability of animal production (Toomey, Fontaine & Lecocq, 2020). Research on epigenetic markers will also be relevant to developing a better understanding of the adaptive processes of species in variable polyculture contexts (Dumont et al ., 2014).…”