Aquatic Food Production Systems

Question 1

What are benthic organisms?

Answer 1

Marine animals that live on the sea bed

Question 2

What are pelagic organisms?

Answer 2

Marine animals that live surrounded by the water.

Question 3

Why are fish an important food for humans?

Answer 3

High in protein and saturated fats and they contain vitamins.

Question 4

What is a fishery?

Answer 4

Somewhere where fish are harvested

Question 5

What is an aquaculture?

Answer 5

The farming of aquatic organisms in both coastal and inland areas.

Question 6

How is fish farming more sustainable that livestock or poultry?

Answer 6

• Fish food contains trimmings and scraps that would have been wasted in the past
• Livestock and poultry processing waste is substituted for fish food
• Some fish have been proven to be able to get enough nutrients without eating other fish

Question 7

Impacts of fish farms?

Answer 7

• Loss of habitat
• Pollution (e.g. fish feed, antibiotics)
• Quick spread of diseases
• Escaped species may interbreed with wild fish. Particularly bad if genetically modified.
• Escaped species could outcompete native species and cause population to crash or disruptions in the food chain.

Question 8

Why are humans so good at fishing?

Answer 8

• GPS technology
• Fishing fleets have become larger and they can stay at sea for weeks by freezing the fish
• They have huge nets that take all of the organisms, whether or not they are the target ones.

Question 9

Why are fish stocks shrinking?

Answer 9

• Industrialised nations heavily subsidize fishing fleets

* Demand outstrips supply

Question 10

What is the tragedy of the commons?

Answer 10

Shared resource tends to be over-exploited because the advantage to the individual is greater than the cost to the individual as the cost is spread to the whole population.

Question 11

What is the solution to the tragedy of the commons?

Answer 11

Regulation and legislation by authorities

Question 12

Example of tragedy of the commons?

Answer 12

Exploitation of the oceans

Question 13

What is maximum sustainable yield?

Answer 13

The natural income that can be exploited each year without depleting the original stock

Question 14

What does the carrying capacity of fish species depend on?

Answer 14

• Reproductive strategy
• Longevity
• The indigenous resources of the habitat

Question 15

Why is MSY not done well in practice?

Answer 15

• The population dynamics are modelled rather than species numbers
• It is impossible to be precise about population sizes
• Estimates are made on previous experience
• The model does not consider age or gender distributions in populations
• Disease could strike

Question 16

What is an alternative to maximum sustainable yield?

Answer 16

Optimum sustainable yield

Question 17

What is OSY?

Answer 17

Maximises the difference between total revenue and total cost