Week 1 - Aquaculture Licences and Monitoring with the Marine Environment Food and Safety Services at the Marine Institute
During my first week of work placement at the Marine Institute I was introduced to the world of aquaculture licensing review and ecological monitoring of marine benthic environments in regards to environmental quality standards. This included the review and digitisation of historic monitoring reports and aquaculture license information database creation.
Aquaculture is a growing industry for the Irish economy with a 10% increase in the value of Irish aquaculture products from 2021 to 2022 (1). The planning, licensing and monitoring of Ireland's aquaculture industry is overseen by the DAFM and the Marine Institute. The Benthos Ecology Group is responsible for the "review and assessment of existing and proposed activities that may have an influence on the marine environment and advising on likely consequences particularly as they relate to licensing of activities on or near the seafloor" (2). Benthic monitoring of licenced aquaculture sites, such as salmon farms, is conducted by environmental consultants hired by licensees who produce Annual Monitoring Reports (AMR).
Benthic Monitoring is used because organisms living on the seafloor are good bioindicators that can provide scientists and regulators insights on the health of a particular site (3). If managed incorrectly anthropogenic inputs, like organic waste and excess feed from finfish farms can lead to eutrophication, reducing available oxygen and stressing organisms in an area (4).
The AMR produced by finfish farms provides information on the baseline conditions of the site and show changing environmental parameters within and around sites such as particle size analysis, sediment profile imagery, infaunal quality index, and the Shannon Weiner Diversity Index.
The reports are then submitted to DAFM and reviewed by experts within the Benthos Ecology Group at the Marine institute to ensure compliance with environmental quality standards, protocols, and regulations like the Water Framework Directive. Yearly surveys help to determine if aquaculture operations are creating "undue impacts" on the seafloor below fish farm cages and can be used to improve management and monitoring of areas to reduce impacts and aid in the recovery of the areas around sites.
Other important monitoring of finfish farms include sea lice monitoring of all active finfish farms carried out by the Fish Health Unit at the Marine Institute. Sea lice are a type of invertebrate known as a copepod and common fish parasites. The two main species of sea lice found in Ireland are Caligus elongatus, and Lepeophtheirus salmonis. Sea lice cause damage to fish, like salmon, by attaching to and feeding on the mucus, skin and blood of the fish. Intensive monitoring of lea lice levels has been conducted by the Marine Institue since 1991, and all "active marine fin fish farms are inspected 14 times per year, on a fortnightly basis from March to May and monthly from June to February."
As a part of the monitoring of aquaculture sites, I also learned how to correctly identify the species, sex and chalimus stages of C. elongatus and L.salmonis from commercial farmed fish samples.
Mature and juvenile female Caligus elongatus (1) and Lepeophtheirus salmonis (4) from farmed fish samples off the West coast of Ireland.
For more information on the Benthos Ecology Group:
https://www.marine.ie/site-area/areas-activity/marine-environment/benthos-ecology-group
For more information on Fish lice monitoring:
https://www.marine.ie/site-area/areas-activity/aquaculture/sea-lice/sea-lice
Citations:
1. https://bim.ie/news-and-events/news/irelands-seafood-economy-worth-e13-billion-in-2022-despite-volatile-year/
2. https://www.marine.ie/site-area/areas-activity/marine-environment/benthos-ecology-group
3. Godson, P.S., Thanga, V.S.G. and Krishnakumar, S. (2022) Ecology and biodiversity of Benthos. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier.
4.https://www.npws.ie/sites/default/files/publications/pdf/IWM7.pdf
