Continued transitions from fish meal and oil in aquafeeds require close attention to biodiversity trade-offs

Feed constitutes a considerable portion of the environmental impact embedded in farmed fish production, making it a pivotal factor in enhancing aquaculture sustainability. While research has evaluated the environmental pressures of feed production, no other spatially explicit global biodiversity assessment of animal feeds exists, and we provide a new approach. Here, we assess biodiversity impacts on 54,628 marine and terrestrial species for two contrasting Atlantic salmon feeds. We find widespread impact on both marine (~89%) and terrestrial (~71%) species, yet relatively small average magnitude of impact. Despite minimising wild-sourced fishmeal and oil by necessity, greater agricultural dependence for feed provisioning appears to have disproportionately exasperated impacts on terrestrial taxa. Our results provide key information for sourcing aquafeed to minimise impacts and optimise sustainability. As the aquaculture industry expands, feed sourcing decisions can reduce the sectors’ contribution to the global biodiversity crisis and meet emerging biodiversity standards.