More than 26 billion juveniles of 180 marine species are released annually into the wild in over 20 countries, but the usefulness of this strategy remains unclear. Here, I analyse the effects of stocking by Japanese marine and salmon stock enhancement programmes and evaluate their efficacy through a Bayesian meta‐analysis of new and previously considered cases. The posterior mean recapture rate (±SD) was 8.3 ± 4.7%. Without co...

Hatchery release is one of the most popular management tools in fisheries, forestry and wild life management, while its negative impacts on wild populations are a global concern. Research and monitoring of its impacts are generally lacking, and the usefulness of hatchery release for fisheries and conservation objectives is unclear. Here, I evaluated positive and negative impacts of worldwide marine stock enhancement and sea ra...

Hermit crabs of the family Coenobitidae comprise the land hermit crabs, with 16 Coenobita species, and the coconut crab Birgus latro . They are terrestrial but spend their marine life as planktonic larvae. Some coenobitid crabs are widely distributed in the Indo‐West Pacific region, and some species occupy narrower ranges. To improve our knowledge of coenobitid crab speciation and geographical distribution patterns, we examine...

Marine aquaculture and stock enhancement are major causes of the introduction of alien species. A good example of such an introduction is the Japanese shortneck clam Ruditapes philippinarum , one of the most important fishery resources in the world. To meet the domestic shortage of R. philippinarum caused by depleted catches, clams were imported to Japan from China and the Korean peninsula. The imported clam is an alien specie...

The dramatic declines in abalone Haliotis spp. fishery production have been documented all over the world. Release of hatchery‐reared juveniles into natural habitats has been considered as one measure to sustain and/or augment the current fishery production of abalone, as well as to restore collapsed abalone stocks. However, attempts at abalone release programmes have only been undertaken at experimental scales, except for Jap...