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BIDDEFORD, Maine

Barry Costa-Pierce, international editors, announce new Elsevier Science aquaculture science journal

Since 1998, Barry Costa-Pierce, Henry L. & Grace Doherty Professor and chairof Marine Sciences and director of UNE’s Marine Science Center, has served on the editorial board of Aquaculture, the world’s leading science aquaculture journal, which, in conjunction with Elsevier Science (based in Amsterdam), has launched a new aquaculture science journal called Aquaculture Reports.

According to Costa-Pierce, Aquaculture is the journal with the highest impact factor in the field, and since 1972 it has focused on publishing novel and innovative international research on the farming of aquatic organisms. Over the decades, the number of scientific manuscripts submitted to Aquaculture has grown but a large portion of these (upwards of 75 percent) were rejected because results were limited in scope to a regional significance or had a focus on minor-use species, or there was a lack of space. Nevertheless, says Costa-Pierce, many of the rejected manuscripts had a high scientific quality and contained vital, science-based findings important to industry development.

Aquaculture, working with Elsevier Science has created Aquaculture Reports to highlight these manuscripts. Aquaculture’s editors have chosen three executive editors (one for each of the world’s major aquaculture regions) who will oversee the editorial process of the new journal: Wenbing Zhang, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China (Asia-Pacific); Wagner Valenti, São Paulo State University, Brazil (Americas); and Anne van Dam, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, the Netherlands (Africa-Europe).

The importance of quality aquaculture science studies will continue to increase in the coming years, Costa-Pierce believes. It is predicted that over the next quarter-century, seafood production from capture fisheries will not increase significantly, if at all. However, projected global demands for seafoods will increase with growing populations and rising incomes in the low and middle-income countries that choose to eat seafoods as a principle dietary protein source.

According to Costa-Pierce, on a global scale, China continues to dominate overall aquaculture production, but the growth of aquaculture is impressive in some areas of Asia and South America, especially Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Brazil. Aquaculture is also developing rapidly in some countries in Africa, notably Egypt, Nigeria and Tanzania.

A large part of the growth in seafood production over the last 30 years has been achieved with a limited number of species such as carps, salmon, tilapias, shrimp and catfish. But the world of seafood aquaculture is changing fast, as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in its 2014 report stated that the number of aquatic species in aquaculture is now exploding to around 600.

An open access journal, Aquaculture Reports just published its first issue in May 2015.

About the University of New England

The University of New England is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.