The study is based on the overall assessment of the commercial and non-commercial value of bivalve aquaculture. It demonstrates that bivalve aquaculture provides benefits in all types of ecosystem services. It assesses supporting services (nutrient cycling through filter feeding and sediment creation and providing habitats for other organisms), provisioning services (meat, pearls, use of shells as a supplement in poultry feed or as fertiliser in agricultural crops…), regulating services (nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration). And, with respect to cultural services, it is argued that they are wide-ranging, although difficult to quantify.
Global non-food bivalve aquaculture services are estimated to be worth $6.47 billion million ($ 2.95-9.99 billion) per year. However, this is likely to be an underestimate of the true value of bivalve aquaculture, as there are significant gaps in the evidence of the value of a number of key services. For example, for support services, more basic quantification of processes is required to allow for scaling up for other species and in other contexts.
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