Dr. Koushik Roy is a circular and sustainable aquaculture system biologist. He is a fish nutritionist, biologist, and aquatic ecologist by training. In Central European Pond farming, he is developing supplementary feeding concepts ^1-4 that can upcycle local circular resources in an efficient or carbon-neutral manner to produce nutritious food from the ponds. In harmony with the natural food web. Also, with a special emphasis on improving farmed pond fish biomass use efficiency from farm-to-fork ⁵ and ecological engineering of fishponds ⁶. His skillset includes the following:

• Aquaculture systems (Ponds, Aquaponics, RAS, Biofloc).
• Systems thinking in aquaculture (production, footprint, post-harvest, human nutrition and dietetics, ecosystem services, in-vivo-in-situ nutrient flows).
• Circular bioeconomy framework in aquaculture (valorisation and value addition of biomass, waste streams, resource use efficiency at animal, ecosystem, and food chain scale).
• Aquaculture-environment interactions (mass balance emissions from feeding/ farm, life cycle assessment, climate change effects).
• Bioenergetics (digestibility, faecal and metabolic losses, retention of C/N/P/energy) and nutrient flows (reactive, particulate N/P losses, trophic fractionation of amino acids, biological upgradation of fatty acids).
• Nutritional ecology of pond systems (ecological stoichiometry, plankton ecology group model, enzymes from food web).
• Farm-to-fork aspects (finishing feeding, pre-slaughtering/ slaughtering/ post-slaughtering, management, fish processing by-products upcycling, sensory evaluation).

Koushik is presently employed at the Faculty of Fisheries and Protection of Waters, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice as Assistant professor (from 01.01.2024) and scientific worker (since 01.04.2022). His education and research started in West Bengal (India) where 'fish for food security' and 'resource circularity for economic reasons' have historical roots. His masters thesis started with investigating differences in urban and peri-urban ponds in Central India ⁸, which coincidentally lead to pond-centric work in PhD thesis too ⁹. During 2015-2018, Koushik obtained first-hand research experience on inland capture fisheries and vulnerabilities from the effects of climate change. During 2018-2022, the researcher as part of his doctoral research had worked on several themes, but the primary focus was on "circular and sustainable fish nutrition" ⁹. Additionally to ponds, the researcher also engaged to understand and integrate nutrient flows in multitrophic systems ^9-10 and nutrition of alternative aquatic animal species ^11-12, besides carp ¹³.

Koushik’s work on European fishponds have also percolated to the policymakers of EU ^{14, 15}. Koushik has received an order of merit for all his BSc, MFSc, and PhD degrees, including a Dean’s award for best research paper under age 35 for his post-doc tenure. He has 39 web of science-indexed publications, and WoS h-index reaching 17 within his 7 years of publication experience. He is involved as junior editorial board member in the Reviews in Aquaculture (Wiley). He supervises PhD (n=1) and masters (n=1) or co-supervise PhD (n=3) thesis. He teaches fish nutrition for PhD or MSc students under English program in faculty. Koushik is holding responsibility as deputy of head of laboratory of nutrition (fish nutrition and ponds working group). He has been PI of two university project grants (1 year each, 8134 EUR each) and helped with successful obtainment of two national level grants (3 year or 5 year) in his capacity as lead researcher (not PI): one focuses on basic research related to nutritional bioenergetics of fish in pond systems (GAČR Mráz 22-18597S) and one on applied research related to development of circular and eco-efficient pond fish nutrition technology (NAZV Mráz QK22010177). He also serves as panel member of natural sciences board for his university grant agency.

With Prof. Johan A.J. Verreth (Prof. emeritus, WUR AFI), year 2022 onwards, Koushik has worked increasingly towards circular food system dimensions ^16-17. With Dr. Marc C.J. Verdegem, a pioneer in global pond research, Koushik organized Marc’s sabbatical stay in his laboratory, only to be trained by Marc on nutritious pond concept developed at WUR-AFI, ecological stoichiometry, nutrient recycling in ponds, etc. Koushik also unified his own “balanced nutrition concept” for Central European fishponds with Marc’s “nutritious pond concept”, for example ¹⁸, which later ignited cooperation for multiple HORIZON consortiums.

 

References

1. Roy, K., Vrba, J., Kaushik, S.J. and Mraz, J., 2020. Nutrient footprint and ecosystem services of carp production in European fishponds in contrast to EU crop and livestock sectors. Journal of Cleaner Production, 270, p.122268.
2. Roy, K., Vrba, J., Kajgrova, L. and Mraz, J., 2022. The concept of balanced fish nutrition in temperate European fishponds to tackle eutrophication. Journal of Cleaner Production, 364, p.132584.
3. Roy, K., Másílko, J., Kajgrova, L., Kuebutornye, F.K.A., Oberle, M. and Mraz, J., 2023a. End-of-season supplementary feeding in European carp ponds with appropriate plant protein and carbohydrate combinations to ecologically boost productivity: lupine, rapeseed and, triticale. Aquaculture, 577, p.739906.
4. Roy, K., Dvorak, P., Machova, Z. and Mraz, J., 2023b. Nutrient footprint versus EPA+ DHA security in land-locked regions—more of local pond farmed, imported marine fish or fish oil capsules?. npj Science of Food, 7(1), p.48.
5. Mraz, J., Jia, H. and Roy, K., 2023. Biomass losses and circularity along local farm‐to‐fork: a review of industrial efforts with locally farmed freshwater fish in land‐locked Central Europe.Reviews in Aquaculture, 15(3), pp.1083-1099.
6. Kajgrová, L., Pecha, O., Roy, K., Dvořák, J., Let, M., Potužák, J., Vrba, J. and Bláha, M., 2024. Pond cascades as a tool for ecological aquaculture allowing natural zooplankton succession, nutrient retention, and multiple stocking–harvesting cycles. Aquacultural Engineering, 104, p.102374.
7. Roy, K., 2014. Studies On The Nutrient Dynamics, Plankton Diversity And Primary Productivity Of A Perennial Unmanaged Urban And Peri-urban Pond In Raipur District Of Chhattisgarh, India. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.3517.6564
8. Roy, K., 2022. Circular and sustainable fish nutrition. Doctoral thesis. University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice, Faculty of Fisheries and Protection of Waters, Czech Republic. 213 pp. ISBN 978-80-7514-149-1. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.35549.69609
9. Lunda, R., Roy, K., Másílko, J. and Mráz, J., 2019. Understanding nutrient throughput of operational RAS farm effluents to support semi-commercial aquaponics: Easy upgrade possible beyond controversies. Journal of environmental management, 245, pp.255-263.
10. Roy, K., Kajgrova, L. and Mraz, J., 2022. TILAFeed: A bio-based inventory for circular nutrients management and achieving bioeconomy in future aquaponics. New Biotechnology, 70, pp.9-18.
11. Roy, K., Podhorec, P., Dvorak, P. and Mraz, J., 2021. Understanding Nutrition and Metabolism of Threatened, Data-Poor Rheophilic Fishes in Context of Riverine Stocking Success-Barbel as a Model for Major European Drainages?. Biology, 10(12), p.1245.
12. Lunda, R., Roy, K., Dvorak, P., Kouba, A. and Mraz, J., 2020. Recycling biofloc waste as novel protein source for crayfish with special reference to crayfish nutritional standards and growth trajectory. Scientific Reports, 10(1), p.19607.
13. Roy, K., Vrba, J., Kaushik, S.J. and Mraz, J., 2020. Feed‐based common carp farming and eutrophication: is there a reason for concern?. Reviews in Aquaculture, 12(3), pp.1736-1758.
14. Aquaculture Advisory Council, European commission. 2021. https://aac-europe.org/images/jdownloads/Recommendations/EN/AAC_Recommendation_-Ecosystem_Services_2021_08.pdf
15. European commission, Brussels. https://www.frov.jcu.cz/en/international-relations/reports-from-business-trips/ffpw-and-cenakva-at-eu2022-cz-the-czech-presidency-of-the-council-of-european-union
16. Roy, K., Turkmen, S. and Turchini, G.M., 2021. Triggering circularity in aquaculture–an introductory virtual special issue. Rev Aquac. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/17535131/homepage/circularity-in-aquaculture-introduction
17. Verreth, J.A., Roy, K. and Turchini, G.M., 2023. Circular bio‐economy in aquaculture.Reviews in Aquaculture, 15(3), pp.944-946.
18. BioRural Webinar. 2023. https://youtu.be/6jMa49RpHjE?si=OvaeFR7Gya562fbS