Introduction
There is an increasing focus on the effects of organic wastes produced by intensive aquaculture, and on solutions to reduce
the polluting impacts of European marine farms worldwide. Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) is a new generation aquaculture that allows for the reduction of environmental impacts, higher profits and the diversification of commercial production. This integrative approach, in fact, offers a natural means of encouraging nutritional recycling within aquaculture farms, simulating a natural community through the employment of extractive species with a low trophic level and high market value. In this context, sea cucumber as deposit feeders species could represent promising candidates for co-culture in IMTA, considering their feeding habits and their high market value. However, although their ecological role in many marine habitats and their feeding behaviour seems highly promising compatible with extensive integration, there are only few investigations available regarding the co-culture of European sea cucumbers in productive systems (MacDonald et al., 2013; Tolon et al., 2017; Neofitou et al., 2019; Grosso et al 2021; Bastien Sadoul et al., 2022; Cutajar et al., 2022).
In this context, aquaculture could offer a sustainable alternative to the exploitation of the wild population, to meet current market demand and at the same time could promote the waste bioremediation nearby productive areas. With regard to European sea cucumber species aquaculture, a consistent body of research literature has been produced in the last few years, paving the way for the artificial reproduction of many European species by developing a spawning induction methodology and larval rearing protocol (Domínguez-Godino et al 2015; Domínguez-Godino et al 2018; Rakaj et al 2018; Rakaj et al., 2019; Laguerre et al., 2020; Magdy et al.,2021; Schagerström et al., 2022). Nevertheless, there are still some challenges facing sea cucumber aquaculture that need to be overcome for future aquaculture development. This brief keynote present the up-to-date research progress and problems and future opportunities for European sea cucumbers in aquaculture.
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