Journal of the Marine Biological Association of India

Status and challenges for advancing lobster aquaculture

Volume 52 Issue 2

Andrew Jeffs

Abstract

Production from world lobster fisheries has been more or less static for many years, and a number of major fisheries have declined in re cent years. Further declines in the landings of lobster fisheriesare very likely due to the combined effects of overfishing,climate change, disease, habitat destruction and coastal pollution. Despite the increasing consumer demand, and the high market value oflobsters,
commercial scale aquaculture of lobsters has been very slow to deve lop. Lobster aquaculture research began over 100 years ago and has only become a commercial reality in the last decade and is already struggling to increase production. This is largely due to the biolo gical obstacles to the successful aquaculture of lobster species, including territoriality, cannibalism, complex larval development and weak resistance to disease. This paper reviews the status of global lobster aquaculture and identifies the major challenges for generating alternative global supplies of lobsters from aquaculture for the future.

Keywords

Aquaculture, spiny lobster, clawed lobster, slipper lobster, phyllosoma

Date : 03-03-2011