Effects of a fish farm on downstream macroinvertebrates

Abstract: The number of fish farms is increasing worldwide tomeet the global demand for fish used as a food source for humans. The WorldBank predicts that by 2030, 62 percent of all consumed fish globally will beproduced in fish farms. Due to this increasing demand for fish, fish farming isa growing business and the numbers of fish farms are increasing. Today, thereare fish farms situated in more than one hundred municipalities in rural partsof Sweden. Fish farms may besituated in hydropower plant reservoirs, which have been foundto be suitable locations for cage fish farming. However, environmental concernshave been raised regarding excess dissolved nutrients from fish farms thatmight enrich downstream ecosystems. The source of this enrichment is primarilyfish feces and uneaten fish feed, which contain both nitrogen and phosphorus. The overall objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of a largefish farm located in north-central Sweden on the downstream river ecosystem. Todo this, I compared benthic macroinvertebrate diversity, functional feedinggroup representation, community composition, and indices of biotic integritybetween a site downstream of a fish farm and a nearby (control) reach withoutan upstream fish farm. No significant difference between these sites wasobserved for any metric accept for the species richness, but due to the lowreplication results should be interpreted with caution. Further studies areneeded to assess the possible impact of fish farms on the water quality andecological health of rivers.