Instructor- Prof. Jim Diana

2CR

TTh 3-4pm in 1024 Dana

More sustainable seafood production focuses on the current ecological systems used to produce seafood and methods to evaluate, analyze, and make changes to these systems to enhance sustainability.   In the course we will analyze fisheries and aquaculture, our current means of producing seafood for human consumption, from the perspectives of history, sustainability, future supplies and demands, management, and their contribution to human welfare. Sustainable seafood is a hot topic currently, with interests ranging from groups like Monterey Bay Aquarium ranking which products are safe to eat from a sustainability perspective, to analyses in Science and Nature indicating the demise coming for wild fish stocks and the oceans as we know them. We will focus on particularly on the role of aquaculture in seafood production, and ways to evaluate different systems in terms of sustainability.  This focus is due to the high likelihood that aquaculture can expand to help fulfill future seafood demand, while fisheries are believed to be at or even above a sustainable level of production.

The course is designed for graduate or upper undergraduate students.  The prerequisite include an upper division course in aquatic ecology, or permission of instructor.  The course will be based on lectures covering the basic aspects of seafood sustainability, as well as student papers and discussion on the development of more sustainable production systems.  There is no required textbook for the course, and readings will be based on current literature and made available through a ctools site.  Grading will be based on two exams and a term paper/presentation.  Each component will comprise about 1/3 of the total grade.  Current details on the planned schedule are included below.