How does one produce the billions of golden shiners, fathead minnows and goldfish required to meet the demands of bait and feeder fish markets?  My research focuses on ways to answer this question, and it involves a mix of hatchery and pond management, water quality and aquatic ecology. Baitfish species typically are predator-limited in the wild. This means that their numbers are limited by being eaten, not by food supply or lack of reproduction. In essence, this is the fate of a baitfish species. On the other hand, although life may be short, it is fecund.  These species are capable of tremendous reproductive effort.

Arkansas is the center of bait and feeder fish production in the United States, and Arkansas fish farmers produce about six billion baitfish annually, or 80% of the farm-raised product. Baitfish farming evolved in response to shortages in wild-caught baitfish, although about half of the baitfish sold in the U.S. are still caught from the wild. While limited studies have not shown any detrimental ecological effects from removing baitfish from natural waters, the harvest and distribution of wild fish has been implicated in the spread of nonindigenous species to new watersheds. In contrast, farm-raised fish are of known and ubiquitous species. We sometimes forget, living as we do in a society with an abundance of food, that many people still benefit from or even depend upon fishing as a source of food. We are only a generation or two removed from a time when most people made a living on the farm, and raising animals and hunting for food were routine activities.

Conducting aquaculture research is both useful and fun. In essence, it’s applying ecological principles to the culture of aquatic organisms. While an undergraduate student majoring in biology (ecology), I took many  “–ology” courses (biology, zoology, entomology, plant ecology, autecology, etc.). Studying the relationships between organisms and their environment was fascinating, but it wasn’t particularly satisfying to me. Ecologists certainly do a great service by helping us to better understand natural systems and our impact upon them, but I wanted to work in a field that would directly help people. Aquaculture provides a useful and productive outlet for scientific information.