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Much of the expansion of large-scale aquaculture has focused on growing only one species in large quantities. However, over the past 20 years, significant research has gone into a different system, which focuses on growing species of different ecological functions together, known as Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA). This system turns the waste of one species, into food for the other another, essentially creating a simplified ecosystem. For example, growing salmon, mussels, and seaweed are together means the excess nutrients released from the salmon, due to uneaten feed or waste, gets filtered up by mussels, and then seaweed take up the products of the mussels, and fish. IMTA reduces the environmental impacts associated with growing food in the ocean, since lowering excess waste minimizes oxygen depletion in the water column, or threats to changes in the composition and habitat of animals living in the sediments below the farm. While IMTA interactions using fish-shellfish-..

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