Biodiversity and aquaculture potential of fish in the marine aquarium trade.

Organism group: labels from online survey groupings. Percentage hobbyist: number of hobbyists from online survey that keep specimens of that group. Species imported to USA: number of species imported to USA for 2004/5 using data from Rhyne et al. [25] (agroupers and sandfish are also part of Serranidae but Rhyne et al. [25] did not distinguish between the two). Stock demand: defined as percentage of organism group kept by hobbyist with low (<2%); medium (2–25%) and high (>25%). Captive bred reports: reports of successful sexual reproduction from the Marine Breeders Initiative list (accessed April 2013) and the percentage of species imported into the USA. Organisations 1-9: who provided information on species cultured commercially (not all are currently in commercial production). Other sources: other records (e.g. research articles etc) of reproduction. Asexual reproduction: records of species that can reproduce asexually (fshark parthenogenesis e.g. [19]). Aquaculture potential. Low: no commercial breeding, very few or no reports of breeding on MBI list. Aquaculture is not likely to fill the gaps any time soon. Medium: some potential, a few species bred but minimal commercial output; High: many species already bred on MBI list and commercially common, expect rapid transfer to other species in family assuming similar breeding pattern. Gap Analysis. Traffic light system (green, amber or red category) based on hobbyist demand and current operational efforts to culture them. Green category includes species with low demand or medium/high demand but successful aquaculture production; amber category included those species with medium or high demand and limited aquaculture potential, red category highlights high demand groups with no operational culture initiatives.
Biodiversity and aquaculture potential of fish in the marine aquarium trade.