Scientific Researches | Ling Cao’s research on the future of marine aquatic products has been selected as ESI Highly Cited Paper and Hot Paper
Contribution:Ziyu Jiang Redactor:Jie Wen Date:2021/07/22

Essential Science Indicators (ESI) of Web of Science in May and July of 2021 showed that the research paper "The future of food from the sea" published by Ling Cao of SJTU-SOO was selected as ESI Highly Cited Paper (top 1% of the same discipline in the publication year) and Hot Paper (top 0.1% of the same discipline in the publication year). The paper mainly studies the development prospects of marine aquatic products in the foreseeable future, and was published on the top international journal Nature. Ling Cao is one of the three co-corresponding authors, the others are Christopher Costello from University of California, Santa Barbara and Stefan Gelcich from Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

As the global population continues to grow, the demand for food has been increasing as well. The prediction of global population and income in 2050 shows that humans will consume 500 million tons of meat every year, which is 38% more than the current yield. Due to the limitation of terrestrial water and land resources, traditional agricultural production will gradually fail to meet humans' demand for protein. Then, to what extent can the ocean alleviate such pressure?

The main proposition of the research is that by strengthening the sustainability management of the ocean, the yield of marine aquatic products (including finfishes, crustaceans and bivalves obtained from aquaculture or capture fisheries) can significantly increase. By 2050, these nutrient-rich and protein-rich "blue foods" are expected to meet 25% of the increase in demand for meat by the 9.8 billion people, which will make an outstanding contribution to global food and nutrition security. The key prerequisite is ocean management based on sustainability goals, including optimization of fishing management, reform of aquaculture policies, and innovation in aquafeed producing techniques, etc. The research indicates that strengthening the sustainability management of marine capture fisheries will increase the yield by about 16% by 2050, while on the contrary, it may lead to a substantial decrease. If the development of alternatives to fish-based materials in aquafeeds can be accelerated to reduce the dependence on wild-caught forage fish, so as to promote eco-friendly aquaculture, the yield of marine aquaculture will also increase significantly in the future.

Ling Cao is a tenure-track associate professor and doctoral supervisor of SJTU-SOO. Her research fields involve the utilization of marine biological resources and integrated ecological management, marine habitat conservation and fisheries policies, environmental impact assessment, and other advanced social and scientific issues. So far, she has published more than 30 high-level papers in influential academic journals, including papers in the top international comprehensive journals Nature, Science and PNAS as the first author or corresponding author.

Link to the paper:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2616-y

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