About

Halley Froehlich is an Associate Professor and the Principal Investigator of the Froehlich Lab within the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on understanding ecological and evolutionary processes, particularly in marine environments. She is involved in studying various aspects of marine biology, contributing to the broader scientific understanding of marine ecosystems and their dynamics.

Research topics

• Business
• Biology
• Environmental science
• Fishery
• Ecology
• Economics
• Environmental planning
• Natural resource economics
• Virology
• Engineering
• Geography
• Environmental resource management
• Medicine
• Biotechnology
• Agricultural economics

Selected publications

• Aquaculture is subject to more regulations than any other food sector in the United States

  SocArXiv (OSF Preprints) · 2026-02-25

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  The United States (U.S.) food system is governed by an extensive set of regulations that determines, in part, which foods reach consumers and how. Regulations play an important role in protecting public interests, such as environmental well-being, but their complexity and number are criticized for delaying innovation and increasing business costs. We explored how the regulatory landscape varies across U.S. food industries and compares to industries’ associated environmental impacts. We analyzed five decades of federal regulatory data from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) for 44 food industries across five food production sectors. We found that the total number of food system regulations has increased over time, with large disparities across individual food sectors. Since at least 1970, the aquaculture sector was annually subject to a greater number of direct regulations than any other food sector, on average. Aquaculture regulation originates from a larger number of CFR titles and federal agencies, and aquaculture is often subject to more regulations within each title and agency, than other food sectors. Our analysis identified several cases where food industries with smaller environmental impacts (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, water use, land use)—including industries in the aquaculture sector—were subject to as many or more total regulations as food industries with larger environmental impacts. This pattern also persisted when comparing impacts only to the number of environmental regulations. While the number of regulations is only a proxy measure of regulatory burden, our results suggest that the U.S. federal regulatory landscape might disadvantage some lower-environmental-impact food industries and their products in the U.S. marketplace, especially aquaculture.

  Publisher

• Exploring the scales and drivers of blue transitions of marine wild-capture fisheries to mariculture in California, U.S.A.

  Environmental Research Food Systems · 2026-05-14

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Commercial capture fisheries worldwide are susceptible to perturbations and sudden declines, also known as shocks. While management reforms and diversification within wild fisheries have provided some stability, it is less clear how parallel sources of seafood production, such as aquaculture, fit into these dynamics, past and present. Marine aquaculture (mariculture) is one way to increase seafood supply as demand increases and fisheries landings potentially become more variable. This study examined historical trends in marine fisheries and mariculture in the state of California, U.S.A., with an aim to empirically understand local ‘blue transitions’, i.e. shifts from wild to farmed production. Using shock, breakpoint and random forest time-series analyses, we explored the potential influence of fisheries variability and changes to aquaculture policy on temporal trends in mariculture production over time. We found supportive evidence that blue transition dynamics have occurred in California. Specifically, we identified a correlation between large fisheries shocks in both volume and value and subsequent regional growth of mariculture. Further, the coefficient of variation (CV) for wild catch volume was a positive predictor – along with California population and U.S. GDP – in explaining mariculture growth from 1972 to 2018 (R2 ± SD= 0.92 ± 0.03). Numeric measures of state and federal policies (e.g., number of regulations) did not improve model predictions, but we found a proliferation of restrictive state regulations (2:1 restrictive to enabling) that may have stymied growth since the 1980s. Because data limitations and misclassification challenged our ability to fully assess wild-farmed dynamics, we also conducted a longer historical, semi-quantitative analysis of California oyster fishing and farming (1888-2018), which highlighted a full blue transition that informs more recent trends. This study underscores the importance of local and state-level fisheries and policy dynamics in shaping mariculture's role in seafood production.

  PublisherDOI

• Aquaculture is subject to more regulations than any other food sector in the United States

  2026-02-25

  articleOpen access

  The United States (U.S.) food system is governed by an extensive set of regulations that determines, in part, which foods reach consumers and how. Regulations play an important role in protecting public interests, such as environmental well-being, but their complexity and number are criticized for delaying innovation and increasing business costs. We explored how the regulatory landscape varies across U.S. food industries and compares to industries’ associated environmental impacts. We analyzed five decades of federal regulatory data from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) for 44 food industries across five food production sectors. We found that the total number of food system regulations has increased over time, with large disparities across individual food sectors. Since at least 1970, the aquaculture sector was annually subject to a greater number of direct regulations than any other food sector, on average. Aquaculture regulation originates from a larger number of CFR titles and federal agencies, and aquaculture is often subject to more regulations within each title and agency, than other food sectors. Our analysis identified several cases where food industries with smaller environmental impacts (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, water use, land use)—including industries in the aquaculture sector—were subject to as many or more total regulations as food industries with larger environmental impacts. This pattern also persisted when comparing impacts only to the number of environmental regulations. While the number of regulations is only a proxy measure of regulatory burden, our results suggest that the U.S. federal regulatory landscape might disadvantage some lower-environmental-impact food industries and their products in the U.S. marketplace, especially aquaculture.

  PublisherDOI

• Climate stress priming of juvenile Southern California giant kelp ( <i>Macrocystis pyrifera</i> ) to thermal extremes

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-01-06

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT Climate change threatens food production across the globe, creating challenges for food systems. Aquaculture, including seaweed production, is expanding while being threatened by global climate stressors, including increasing extreme events. Marine aquaculture is especially vulnerable to heatwaves, which can rapidly raise temperatures above the physiological limits of some organisms. While several interventions to increase resilience to climate impacts are being explored, ‘priming’ has emerged as a possible adaptation for seaweeds that maintains genetic diversity but hardens individuals to stressors later in life. California has a developing seaweed sector while also experiencing some of the most extreme marine heatwave conditions on record. We explore temperature impacts and priming – exposing an earlier stage of an organism to a mild stressor to prepare the individual for future stress – on giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera , an important foundation species along the West Coast of the United States. Our experiments focused on the juvenile sporophyte stage on miniaturized spools, from approximately one week before outplanting size to one week after. First, we determined the reaction norms of M. pyrifera in waters ranging from 5 to 30°C at the outplanting stage. Next, we explored how priming (heat + or – nutrients) in a hatchery setting prepares M. pyrifera for outplanting to a marine heatwave. To assess experimental outcomes, we took measures of growth, survival, photosynthetic function ( Fv/Fm ), and carbon and nitrogen assimilation via isotopes. We found temperatures above 20°C had significant negative impacts on all metrics of performance during the juvenile sporophyte stage. Further, we determined heat priming in conjunction with hatchery level (+) nutrients resulted in overall increased performance when exposed to a marine heatwave. These findings support the continued exploration of priming as a tool for climate resilience and can inform current hatchery practices for aquaculture practitioners looking to improve crop outcomes for this species.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Biodiversity Consequences of Replacing Animal Protein From Capture Fisheries With Animal Protein From Agriculture

  Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture · 2025-11-17 · 1 citations

  article

  Replacing animal protein sourced from marine capture fisheries with animal protein from agriculture will likely increase the threats to biodiversity given current human diets. Approximately half the Earth’s arable land surface has been converted from natural habitats to food production which has been identified as a key driver of biodiversity loss in terrestrial ecosystems, as have fisheries in aquatic environments. Reductions in seafood production arising from major reductions in access to fishery resources and consumption would affect the demand for agricultural land. Replacing all animal protein from marine fisheries could require almost an additional 5 million km² of land – larger than the extent of intact rain forest in Brazil – if replaced by the current proportional combination of livestock and poultry. Replacing all fish in aquaculture diets would result in the need for over 47,000 square kilometers of new land converted to agricultural production. Concomitantly, data show that terrestrial and freshwater species are more likely to be threatened with extinction than marine species and that agriculture is the dominant cause of these extinctions. This paper suggests that extinction risks per million tonnes of animal protein produced are 2.6 times higher for agriculture than marine capture fisheries. Agriculture is the main driver of extinctions because it is predicated on the conversion of complex, natural ecosystem structures to simple, human-dominated systems, whereas well-managed fisheries seek to work within natural ecosystem structure and function. Available evidence suggests that relying even more on land-based animal foods by replacing marine with terrestrial protein sources may cause more biodiversity loss, not less. Policy makers need to consider the implications of restricting the use of fishery resources on planetary biodiversity beyond measures aimed at attaining sustainable use.

  PublisherDOI

• Uncertain seafood sustainability in a manufactured crisis

  2025-04-26

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In 2025, the United States (U.S.) administration issued a new Executive Order (EO), Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness, intensifying efforts to deregulate the seafood sector under the guise of promoting domestic industry. Building on the 2020 EO (Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth), this policy marks a significant escalation in dismantling federal regulatory frameworks, weakening scientific authority, and seemingly sidelining aquaculture development. This paper reflects on our first publication assessing the 2020 EO during the COVID-19 pandemic and evaluates four major areas of comparative concern: (1) regulatory dismantling rather than reform, (2) largely ignoring aquaculture from the national seafood strategy, (3) persistent and deepened data and research infrastructure gaps, and (4) a continued mischaracterization and inconsistency of U.S. seafood sourcing and trade realities. In contrast to science-informed management that enabled the recovery of many U.S. wild stocks, the 2025 EO and other actions reduce the role of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, threatens legal mechanisms for agency expertise (via Chevron deference repeal), and promotes ill-informed deregulatory timelines and actions (e.g., removal of marine protected areas). Aquaculture, the most regulated and underutilized sector, is also overlooked, despite its actual potential to help meet domestic seafood demand. Simultaneously, critical federal databases, climate-focused research, and inter-agency coordination mechanisms are being defunded or removed. Ultimately, weakening evidence-based governance structures and partnerships, as well as voluntarily inducing volatile trade dynamics jeopardize the ecological, economic, and food security benefits of a resilient seafood system, putting America last instead of first.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Revisiting Small‐Scale Aquaculture ( <scp>SSA</scp> )

  Reviews in Aquaculture · 2025-11-02 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT Aquatic foods are a vital source of nutrition, yet growing demand and stagnant wild‐capture fisheries have positioned aquaculture as essential to meeting global food needs. Despite this, aquaculture's diverse forms remain poorly understood, particularly small‐scale aquaculture (SSA). Unlike small‐scale fisheries (SSF), which are widely recognized in policy and research, SSA lacks consistent definitions and is often conflated with SSF or defined narrowly by physical metrics like farm size. This limits its visibility in policy and development efforts, overlooking critical social, economic, and governance dimensions such as ownership, labor, and market orientation. Through a systematic review of 83 studies across 24 countries, we analyze SSA across ecosystems (freshwater, brackish, marine) and species groups (finfish, invertebrates, seaweed) to identify trends in production characteristics, yield reporting, and social dimensions. We find freshwater SSA dominates the literature, while marine SSA, especially mollusk farming, is significantly underrepresented. SSA exhibits wide variation in yields, farm sizes, ownership, and management structures, indicating that existing classification frameworks are insufficient. We propose a context‐sensitive, social‐ecological classification system that integrates production metrics with governance and socioeconomic characteristics. To guide application, we offer two policy frameworks, one for regions with existing SSA definitions, recommending participatory revision and expanded data collection; and one for regions without definitions, advocating for a stepwise approach to characterization. Our findings underscore the need for more inclusive, adaptable classifications to improve SSA's visibility in global food policy and unlock its full contributions to sustainable development, equity, and local livelihoods.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Uncertain United States seafood sustainability in a manufactured crisis

  Marine Policy · 2025-05-31 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In 2025, the United States (U.S.) administration issued a new Executive Order (EO), Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness , intensifying efforts to deregulate the seafood sector under the guise of promoting domestic industry. Building on the 2020 EO ( Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth ), the new policy and other disruptive governance actions mark a significant escalation in undoing federal regulatory frameworks, weakening scientific authority, and deemphasizing aquaculture development. This paper reflects on our first publication assessing the 2020 EO during the COVID-19 pandemic and evaluates four major areas of comparative concern: (1) regulatory dismantling rather than reform, (2) largely ignoring aquaculture from the national seafood strategy, (3) persistent and deepened data and research infrastructure gaps, and (4) a continued mischaracterization and inconsistency of U.S. seafood sourcing and trade realities. In contrast to science informed management that enabled the recovery of many U.S. wild stocks, the 2025 EO and other actions reduce the role of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, threatens legal mechanisms for agency expertise (via Chevron deference repeal), and promotes ill-informed deregulatory timelines and actions (e.g., removal of marine protected areas). Aquaculture, the most regulated and underutilized sector, is also seemingly overlooked, despite its actual potential to help meet domestic seafood demand. Simultaneously, critical federal databases, climate-focused research, and inter-agency coordination mechanisms are being defunded or removed. Ultimately, weakening evidence-based governance structures and partnerships, as well as voluntarily inducing volatile trade dynamics jeopardize the ecological, economic, and food security benefits of a resilient seafood system, putting America last not first.

  PublisherDOI

• Finding Common Ground: Assessing the Co-Location Potential of California's Blue Food and Clean Energy Sectors

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• No Free Lunch: Sustainable Aquaculture Requires Recognizing Past Science, Improvements, and Comparative Assessment

  Reviews in Aquaculture · 2025-10-29 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Aquaculture has become an established and important part of the global food system. Several critiques of aquaculture continue to resurface, seemingly ignoring past research and improvements of (1) aquaculture and wild fisheries feedbacks, (2) aquaculture's role in food security, (3) moral complexity of aquatic foods, and (4) paths to better data. Aquaculture has become an established part of the global food system and plays a key role in supporting food security and livelihoods [1-3]. Indeed, aquaculture growth is critical for ensuring future sustainable, healthy, and equitable food systems [3]. Not all aquaculture is created equal, however, posing both sustainability opportunities and challenges [4, 5]. A unifying feature of any food production sector is that it will have an environmental impact, and aquaculture is no exception [6, 7]. Given this current reality, the goal of research should arguably be to improve aquaculture where it can be improved, seek equity in its development to address food security, and recognize that other management levers in agriculture and wild capture fisheries will be necessary to address “aquaculture's footprint.” The science on aquaculture, while diverse and expanding, needs to acknowledge and build on past advances rather than downplay or ignore the benefits of those improvements. Full respect and understanding of these advances will ensure that proposed solutions reflect the real complexities and variability of aquaculture systems—a unique industry that spans land, sea, and freshwater spaces. From our collective perspective, several pernicious critiques of aquaculture continue to resurface (e.g., Science Advances “Aquaculture” special issue) that we address here in hopes of refocusing future research in more constructive directions. Specifically, we respond to four major themes from the special issue and central to aquaculture debate within the literature: (1) interactions and dependencies between aquaculture and wild capture fisheries, particularly feed; (2) aquaculture's role in food security; (3) the social-ecological complexity concerning the morality of aquatic farming; and (4) constructing a path, not just demand for better data. The potential for aquaculture to reduce demand for wild fisheries was part of early general interest in farmed aquatic foods. Several studies have revealed, however, that aquaculture has not necessarily relieved pressure on wild capture counterparts [8-10]—though the counterfactual (i.e., state of fisheries in the absence of aquaculture) is hard to test. Instead, fisheries management has consistently shown to be the most effective strategy to date to recover and manage wild stocks [11]. As aquaculture continues to grow, a focus on how to integrate wild fisheries and aquatic farming (i.e., ecosystem-based approach) to achieve management, conservation, and sustainable resource use objectives is a needed line of study and application (e.g., [8]). Feed represents a direct way in which fed aquaculture (e.g., finfish and crustaceans) interacts with capture fisheries, and therefore has been studied for decades [12-15]. As aquaculture has expanded, feed composition has shifted from the use of wild caught inputs (fishmeal and oil) to more cost-effective alternatives, including land-based crops (Figure 1a,b). Such efforts have prompted numerous synthesis, policy, and modeling papers [18-21]. These studies have challenged what we mean by “sustainable” production, as aquaculture has grown while reducing fishmeal and oil input per fed organism [22, 23]. Indeed, aquaculture is also criticized for using crops, which require more water and land [4, 24] and can contribute to terrestrial biodiversity loss (e.g., from soy produced on recently deforested land)—although impacts are comparatively less than from its use in livestock and poultry industries [21]. In addition, many feed ingredients are food-grade products that could theoretically be directly consumed by humans instead [25, 26]. Yet, the goal of having aquaculture, or any food sector for that matter, produce zero impact on the environment is simply impossible. Instead, reducing possible harms (e.g., through an Ecosystem Approach to Aquaculture [EAA]) [27-29] and assessing aquaculture relative to other nutritionally comparable food options (e.g., Life Cycle Assessment, Cumulative Pressure Assessment) [4, 6, 30, 31] is a more balanced approach [5, 23, 32]. Aquaculture is part of the global food system and ignoring the diversity and efficiencies of different production practices will not help address the social-ecological problems surrounding how and where we produce food [33]. Because of the global scale of aquaculture and the nutritional value of fishmeal and fish oil as feed for fed species, aquaculture has been the main consumer of forage fish (i.e., small pelagic fish: anchovies, sardine, menhaden, etc.) since the 2000s (Figure 1c)—the bulk source of marine-based ingredients [22]. Yet, even with the global rise of (fed) aquaculture over the past 40 years, forage fish landings have remained relatively stable over this same period (Figure 2a), indicating use has not resulted in sweeping collapses. Ultimately, this seeming disconnect between aquaculture growth and feed components has been possible because of improvements in feed efficiencies (i.e., feed conversion ratios (FCR), Figure 2b), market shifts that reallocated forage fish from livestock feed to aquaculture feed (Figure 1c), shifts to terrestrial feed resources (Figure 1a,b), and greater incorporation of seafood byproducts [5, 20]. All these aspects contribute to how much forage fish go into feed and how much aquaculture biomass is produced, that is, fish in: fish out (FIFO) ratio [5, 34]. One of the most persistent critiques of “feeding fish to fish” is based on FIFO (e.g., [35]) (Figure 3). Yet how one estimates FIFO depends on numerous model assumptions and data quality, including accounting for or ignoring improvements to the sector over time. For instance, Roberts et al.'s [35] most extreme results stem from estimates published between 2008 and 2011 and thus collected in the early 2000s when efficiencies and percent inclusion were higher [14, 36, 37]. Older estimates will thus result in higher economic FIFO (eFIFO). In fact, the average eFIFO across taxa from the International Fishmeal and Fish Oil Organization (IFFO) (2000 and 2010 mean ± SD = 1.2 ± 1.1) versus the Roberts et al. values from across the four studies/reports (1.1 ± 0.5) generally align when time is considered (Figure 3). Another issue is “double counting” of fishmeal and fish oil (i.e., residual content). Rendering of forage fish simultaneously creates meal and oil from the same fish, and if this redundancy is not accounted for, it will increase the estimate of wild fish used [22, 34]. The recent research that calculates FIFO with byproducts (also known as trimmings) and “spillage” (better known as handling mortality, incidental mortality, or discard mortality) [35] is arguably misleading. Byproducts—parts of an organism not typically consumed by humans—are an increasing and, we argue, positive addition to the feed arsenal to compensate for the reduction of wild forage fish species [38]. In fact, the use of byproducts is advocated as a solution toward achieving better nutritional FIFO (nFIFO) [39]. Trimmings from fishes processed for human consumption are estimated to represent ca. 40% of fishmeal and fish oil production—a doubling of use since 2000 [17, 40, 41]. Similar to the redundancy of meal and oil due to processing, including trimmings as a “fish use” penalty seems counterproductive. The original intent of FIFO was to understand how much fed aquaculture drives consumption of wild species, which would be reduced by using byproducts and support a more circular economy. Similarly, the intent of FIFO is feed, not total mortality caused by fisheries. Forage fish can be sustainably fished by using existing fisheries management tools calibrated to account for their life history and ecological role [42, 43]. Precisely measuring incidental mortality, however, is challenging [44] and not explicitly accounted for in most models. Yet, unobserved mortality occurs in most fisheries, and fishery stock assessments and management procedures are often robust to the additional mortality [45-47]. Modifications could technically be made to harvest control rules, but even so, adopting these changes would likely have little effect on long-term average catches from any given stock/fishery because of the naturally high population variability of small pelagic species [20, 48]. Regardless, the key factor is fisheries governance, not aquaculture management. Reduction fishery supply chains have long existed before aquaculture [22], even if aquaculture is the main user now (~90% of landings) [3] (Figure 1b). Other sectors, including livestock, pets, fertilizers, and pharmaceuticals, have and continue to use fishmeal and oil, a situation that would likely persist in the absence of aquaculture. This reality underscores the need for governance, not just markets, to influence if/how forage fish are used (i.e., considering equity and food security dimensions through different mechanisms, such as regulations, certification, etc.). Governance has resulted in the restriction and removal of finfish aquaculture in some regions, including British Columbia, Canada [49]. If and how salmon pathogens impact wild salmon populations has a long and contentious past. Evidence of negative to neutral impacts has been repeatedly presented over the decades [50-53], creating enough uncertainty—especially among the public and policymakers—to phase out Atlantic salmon Salmo salar in Canadian waters. Yet, trade-offs persist, as farmed salmon is continually imported from other countries for North American consumption [54]. Ignoring aquaculture's contribution and potential in food security is shortsighted. Aquaculture can directly and indirectly contribute to food security, but how, where, and whether it does depends on context and distribution of nutritional and economic benefits [1, 7, 33, 55]. Direct food security benefits of aquaculture relate to situations where farmed products supply nutritious and affordable food that supports the nutritional needs of either local or distant populations. Currently, the majority of inland (93%) and marine (80%) aquaculture production is retained domestically, though there is greater variability at the species level [56]. While questions remain about the subnational distribution of aquaculture benefits across contexts, evidence from Bangladesh indicates that rapid aquaculture development led to a decline in real fish prices and an increase in per capita consumption of fish by the poorest households [57]. Even when farmed products are not directly consumed by those with the highest nutritional needs, aquaculture can indirectly benefit food security by supporting local income and employment (e.g., [58]). However, net welfare gains from aquatic foods are not guaranteed and must be coupled with broader rights and representation to realize an equitable and just distribution of benefits [33, 59, 60]. An additional layer of food security considerations for aquaculture relates, once again, to the utilization of feedstuffs, including fishmeal and fish oil, compared to the potential food security benefits of direct human consumption. First, as a key component of a circular economy, utilization of processing byproducts in feeds should be viewed as a positive trend from a food security and environmental perspective as these byproducts are not otherwise currently consumed directly by humans and they reduce reliance on direct wild-sourced ingredients. Second, when and whether reduction fisheries harm local food security is highly dependent on the local demand profile, which relates to cultural preferences and current policies. For example, there is no clear evidence that the South American market could absorb any significant portion of the Peruvian anchoveta Engraulis ringens landings, but there is growing concern around sardinella catch in West Africa where the species represents an important traditional food source, especially for the poor [61]. Third, the food security issues surrounding feed-based resources highlight the need to consider the food system from an integrated perspective. For instance, decreasing aquaculture's fishmeal demand may achieve little in reducing overall demand for reduction fisheries products, as the pig and poultry industry would likely absorb the supply at a reduced cost [22] (Figure 1a,c). And as we noted above, lower fishmeal inclusion rates come at the expense of increasing inclusion of soymeal and other terrestrial products, with other alternative ingredients in development (e.g., insect meal, single cell protein, fermented products, microalgae) and beginning to be incorporated into fed aquaculture diets, including Norwegian Atlantic salmon (Figure 1b) [13, 16, 18, 62, 63]. It is thus worth reemphasizing that when it comes to food and the environment, there is no free lunch. Indeed, all animals must eat. Trade-offs are not only relegated to environmental considerations, but also moral questions of food production itself. The seemingly simple baseline of how fish and invertebrates perceive pain is hotly debated and thus influences what and how it is accounted for (or not) in aquaculture and fisheries [64, 65]. Decades of research point to some synergies across animal welfare and ethics, but agreements are sparse [66] and trade-offs are ignored. For instance, octopus sentience is well documented and recognized in science and the public, but farming a commonly fished species, Octopus vulgaris, is being explored in Spain [67]. As a result, some regions (e.g., California and Washington, USA) have imposed outright bans on octopus farming before it happens, alongside articles advocating for such actions [68]. However, the bans are in regions where consumption is already low and do nothing to address octopus wild capture. For example, California state law (AB 3162) still permits 35 octopuses to be fished a day per person. Avoiding all aquaculture for the sake of wild fish (e.g., [69]) must be weighed against the moral imperative of improving nutrition and livelihoods for low-income people, as well as improving sustainability in the global food system overall. Who decides what is ethical is moving beyond sustainability into a realm of cultural significance and social dimensions that will vary depending on community, identity, and positionality (e.g., [59]). Nevertheless, we agree that who benefits from aquaculture should be central to its use and development (e.g., Social Carrying Capacity) [70] and is not always the case [71], but the societal context and comparison to existing practices matters. High-quality and widely available data are fundamental for improved accounting of social and environmental considerations. Aquaculture is generally more data-limited than agriculture and wild capture fisheries; though data improvement needs exist across food sectors [72]. Such data limitations, including around subsidies, can constrain full accounting of a variety of measures around the world. Importantly, it limits our ability to compare the relative impact of aquaculture to other systems, which is essential for grounding and addressing the real issues. The path for data improvement, once again, runs through governance. Whether that be funding and government support to collect and house public data (e.g., [73]) or increase transparency of feed supply chains through mandates and/or certification programs (e.g., Aquaculture Stewardship Council). We strongly agree better data are essential to improve aquaculture environmentally and socially. But the argument is not whether we need better data, but how to get better data, which continues to be overlooked [72]. For example, a recent study synthesized global industry subsidies [74], providing critical and comparative insights into “costs” of such subsidies. Aquaculture was so comparatively small it was lumped into wild capture values. Regardless, the point is it is not enough to simply demand more data; we need to find the transdisciplinary, collaborative, and synthesis paths to do so. We acknowledge people hold different moral views when it comes to food. Animal-sourced food consumption is indeed driving major sustainability challenges, and large dietary shifts would help. However, an all-or-nothing mentality can be polarizing, and complete shifts and disadoptions of foods are exceedingly rare, especially in seafood [75, 76]. Yet, these tensions around food production do not mean change is moot. Aquaculture has made significant progress toward reducing impacts on wild species while feeding a growing population, supported by decades of science and efforts aligned with EAA [77] and OneHealth [78]. We also encourage comparative assessments when it comes to understanding aquaculture sustainability. In fact, in the United States, aquaculture is more regulated than any other food sector to date, by orders of magnitude [79, 80]. This is not to say sustainability has been achieved and we can move on. Sustainability is a moving target and will always need updates and support—especially when it comes to more and better data. Given this context, we implore others to build on the significant past research, recognizing the complexity of a system that spans aquatic and terrestrial spaces and the outsized role policy plays in addressing the many concerns surrounding aquaculture. Ignoring the substantial influence of fisheries and agricultural management in influencing the sustainability of aquaculture oversimplifies the problem. H.E.F. conceived the idea, wrote the initial draft, collected and analyzed data, created figures, and revised the draft. J.A.G. conceived the idea, wrote the initial draft, and revised the draft. G.C. collected data, conceived idea, wrote initial draft, and revised draft. J.L.B. wrote the initial draft, revised the draft. T.E.E. wrote the initial draft and revised the draft. C.D.G. wrote the initial draft and revised the draft. B.S.H. wrote the initial draft and revised the draft. R.W.H. provided data, wrote initial draft. R.L.N. provided data, wrote initial draft, revised draft. M.T. provided data, wrote initial draft, revised draft. We thank the numerous scientists who built the foundation of aquaculture research. Special thanks to who this but and on the of currently a of the Aquaculture of and on the of in science for which as an industry which as an industry science for which as an industry past of the Aquaculture at the of on the of and the on and the at In addition, there is in for The other no of at the of and on the impacts and interactions of aquaculture, wild fisheries, and at the of Washington, and seafood and aquaculture at the of with research on the impacts of food production on marine and terrestrial biodiversity and and in at the of for and research on marine food and biodiversity and of the of of Washington, and is the fisheries on forage fish fisheries of and at and in aquatic food resources and and of the for and and a global in marine and food of and and past of the Aquaculture at the of and in aquaculture and fish and of on and the at and in and practices to improve global food security and the environment on land and at sea, aquaculture. of the at The of and at the and a on sustainability in the global food with across fisheries, aquaculture, and marine is not to this as no were

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Frequent coauthors

• Benjamin S. Halpern

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  126 shared

• Richard S. Cottrell

  University of Queensland

  59 shared

• Caitlin D. Kuempel

  44 shared

• Jessica A. Gephart

  University of Washington

  26 shared

• Melanie Frazier

  25 shared

• Luke D. Gardner

  Moss Landing Marine Laboratories

  24 shared

• Rebecca R. Gentry

  22 shared

• Julia L. Blanchard

  UC San Diego Health System

  19 shared

Labs

• Halley E. Froehlich LabPI

  Not provided

Education

• Ph.D., School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences

  University of Washington

  2015

• B.Sc., Animal Biology

  University of California Davis

  2009

• A.A., Liberal Arts/Biology

  West Valley College

  2007