Por Ana Luísa Maulvault (Portuguese Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere - IPMA I.P.).
A aquacultura desempenha um papel crucial na nutrição humana e na subsistência de milhões de pessoas, esperando-se que a sua contribuição para a produção global de frutos do mar aumente ainda mais no futuro (como forma de combater a fome e a desnutrição de uma população mundial em crescimento). No entanto, a sua expansão enfrenta vários desafios ambientais...
Abstract: Aquaculture plays a crucial role on human nutrition and the livelihood of millions of people, and its contribution to the global seafood production is expected to further increase in the future, to fight hunger and undernourishment of a growing world population. Yet, its expansion faces several environmental challenges. Disease outbreaks (caused by bacteria, virus, fungus or parasites) are the primary constraint to aquaculture’s sustainable growth, causing massive mortalities and substantial economic losses. Another major threat faced by the sector is the increased occurrence and severity of extreme weather phenomena (e.g.marine heatwaves) prompted by climate change. These acute and intense events can have profound and cascading physiological implications on farmed fish welfare, impairing their metabolism, antioxidant capacity and immunocompetence, favouring disease outbreaks and, ultimately, animal mortality.
Given the ecological concerns that the overuse of antibiotics/pesticides raises (e.g.increased pollution and antimicrobial resistance), it is, therefore, urgent to develop non-chemically based adaptation strategies that will enable the aquaculture sector to overcome the present and future environmental challenges, while assuring a sustainable use of the oceans and marine resources. In this sense, the use of functional feeds enriched with natural immunostimulant ingredients (e.g.seaweeds) has recently deserved some attention in the animal production sector, as it constitutes an eco-friendly alternative with lower costs and a wider range of efficacy than vaccines. Yet, there are still many “unknowns” that need to be addressed before nutritionally-based approaches, such as seaweed supplementation, can become part of an animal health management strategy, including: 1) lack of data on fish stress response; 2) limited utilization of seaweed bioactive compounds in aquafeeds; 3) feeds efficacy not tested under fish sub-optimal growth conditions; 4) unknown effective prophylactic/therapeutic dosages.
This talk will present the main outcomes of the 4-year project Aqua-CLIMADAPT that aimed to undertake an integrated multi-biomarker approach to: 1) investigate farmed marine fish stress responses to marine heatwaves and bacterial disease outbreaks; and 2) validate functional feeds enriched with seaweeds as a sustainable and cost-effective adaptation solution to improve fish health and to overcome the environmental challenges posed by climate change.
