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Defining Seafood Safety in the Anthropocene.
Environmental Science & Technology ( IF 10.8 ) Pub Date : 2020-07-09 , DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.0c03505 Michael S Bank 1, 2 , Marc Metian 3 , Peter W Swarzenski 3
Environmental Science & Technology ( IF 10.8 ) Pub Date : 2020-07-09 , DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.0c03505 Michael S Bank 1, 2 , Marc Metian 3 , Peter W Swarzenski 3
Affiliation
The world’s human population is projected to reach over 9 billion people by mid-century and the role of the ocean in a food and nutrition security context is becoming increasingly important. Harvesting healthy seafood that is safe for human consumption in parallel with healthy and sustainable seafood production are pressing topics,(1) especially in developing countries with a strong reliance on marine-based foods. The health and sustainability of seafood supply is a hotly debated area with global implications. An estimated 33% of all wild fish stocks are not fished sustainably when population biology factors are considered.(2) Mariculture is also facing critical challenges, including impacting the wider ecosystem, through methylmercury exposure to wild fish,(3) nutrient imbalances and releases,(4) escaped fish, sea lice transfer,(5) spread of disease and pathogens, and sources and sinks of antimicrobial resistance and habitat degradation.(6) Additionally, wild and farmed fish and shellfish are co-experiencing local and global environmental challenges from pollution exposure, ocean acidification,(7) harmful blooms of toxic algae(8) and associated climate change effects of increased temperatures and levels of carbon dioxide (Figure 1). The cumulative effects of this complex set of challenges has the potential to significantly impact the safety and sustainability of seafood.(9) There has consequently been increased interest in seafood safety in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs (e.g., Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well-Being, Responsible Consumption and Production, Climate Action, Life Below Water, and Partnerships for the Goals). Figure 1. Integrated and cumulative threats and challenges to seafood safety in the Anthropocene. Seafood safety is a broad term covering the health and sustainability of seafood populations as well as safety of seafood for human consumption. We propose the following definition of seafood safety as the maintenance and production of healthy marine biota through successful air, land, and water pollution management strategies; effective biohazard and contaminant surveillance of marine fish, shellfish, and sea mammals; algal, gelatinous, and invertebrate resources; and their continuous proper handling from the sea to the table. Ensuring seafood safety is complex, involving broad spatiotemporal scales, industry and government surveillance and regulations, and proper handling techniques for consumers. For example, global contaminants such as methylmercury and PCB’s have important implications for seafood safety in imported seafood products,(10,11) while most common food-borne illnesses are caused by naturally occurring bacteria and improper local handling.(9) Mariculture has emerged as a promising seafood production option compared to stagnant capture fishery operations.(2) However, the threats, sustainability dynamics, and food safety challenges often overlap for mariculture and capture fisheries (Figure 1). Additional safety concerns arise with the use of mariculture fish feeds. Common feed contaminants include Salmonellae, mycotoxins, veterinary drug residues, persistent organic pollutants, agricultural, and other chemicals (solvent residues, melamine), heavy metals (mercury, lead, cadmium), excess mineral salts (hexavalent chromium, arsenic, selenium, fluorine), and dyes.(12) Much of these contaminants stem from marine- and terrestrial-based source materials, although antioxidant stabilizers such as ethoxyquin are often added to fish meal and oils. Furthermore, fish feed is produced predominantly from fish meal and oils from forage fish, and this dependence is unsustainable, in the long term, if a lower carbon footprint is a desired goal. In accordance with the sustainable development of a low carbon footprint feed regime, is the need for mariculture to reduce its dependence on fish meal and oils from forage fish and to operate within planetary boundaries.(13,14) Recently, mesopelagic (200–1000 m depths) fish and invertebrate biota (e.g., Euphausia superba) have been proposed as a source of both food and fish meal.(15) This use of novel ingredients for aquafeeds including microalgae, macroalgae, bacteria, yeast, insects,(16) and fish processing waste is important to the future of feed-based mariculture as a viable alternative to feed based primarily on forage fish.(14) However, exploiting this fragile component of the marine food web has several important risks and limitations,(17) including microplastic pollution, and associated pathogens and co-contaminants, which are often prevalent in mesopelagic biota.(18,19) Furthermore, mesopelagic species play a critical role in the ocean’s biological pump(20,21) and the trophic transfer of carbon, nutrients and contaminants through diel vertical migrations.(18,21) These critical biogeochemical cycling roles in ecosystem energy flow affect overall ocean health, and ineffective management of this vital resource could lead to broadscale marine ecosystem deterioration. It could also impact the oceans ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, further exacerbating the climate change problem.(17) Additionally, these alternative ingredients need to be more thoroughly evaluated on nutritional value and overall food safety. We therefore suggest employment of the precautionary principle, using sound science as the foundation for the sustainable management of this resource.(17,22) One of the greatest challenges to seafood safety and human health is the cumulative risk of exposure and bioaccumulation of global non-point source pollutants such as mercury, PCBs, dioxin-like PCBs, radionuclides, and microplastics. These contaminants enter the oceans as diffuse non-point source deposits transported by the atmosphere and transferred throughout the ocean by currents and efficient air–sea exchange.(23−25) These global pollution transport and exposure pathways make it essential to utilize multifaceted approaches in assessing the chemistry and toxicological profile of environmentally relevant chemical mixtures instead of single pollutant environmental and human health risk assessments. To address the issue of non-point source pollution and seafood safety at broad spatial scales we suggest a formal expansion of existing global partnerships. This could be achieved through the different United Nations environmental convention’s addressing persistent organic pollutants, mercury and microplastics, namely the Stockholm, Minamata, and Basel Conventions, respectively. These conventions would benefit from formally integrating a seafood safety and food security perspective into their agendas. This would harness the expertise of an entirely new group of individuals from a scientific discipline that is highly relevant.(25) Seafood safety, on one hand, is primarily a global air, land, and water quality issue but is also interwoven with climate change, oxygen minimum zones, harmful algal blooms, pathogens, biohazards such as parasitic microorganisms, and ocean acidification (Figure 1). In summary, maintaining seafood safety faces scale-specific challenges, ranging from global atmospheric deposition processes, parasite distributions, and chemical exposures to proper consumer handling taking place within households. Therefore, ensuring seafood safety will always require a multifaceted, interdisciplinary approach to complex and interdependent processes that occur from sea to table. The authors declare no competing financial interest. This work was supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries (Ocean Health Project Number 15494) to M.S.B. The IAEA is grateful for the support provided to its Environment Laboratories by the Government of the Principality of Monaco. We are grateful to the editorial staff for their suggestions and comments which improved the manuscript. This article references 25 other publications.
更新日期：2020-07-21
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