Objective
Despite the development of more efficient diagnosis, sanitary trols and preventive methods such as vaccination, disease incidence and use of antibiotics and drugs still remain as problems for the European aquaculture industry. The objective of the present project is to improve welfare and health of farmed fish through reduced stress and improved immune competence in Atlantic salmon and sea bass. The principles derived are expected to be applied to other species. The objective will be achieved by exposing fish in fresh water and seawater to environmental stress such as low O2, ammonia, high CO2 under high and low stocking density, and varied light regimes. In selected studies, implantation of stress hormones is carried out to mimic stress ditions. Stress responses will be assessed by analysis of plasma hormone levels as well as by a set of biochemical and physiological stress indicators in plasma and tissue of experimental fish. The experiments will also explore the underlying physiological and molecular mechanisms of stress effects on primary barriers to infection and on behaviour. In addition, immune competence offish exposed to Stressors will be assessed by innate and acquired immune parameters and the bi-directional communication between the endocrine and immune system will be investigated. Due to limited number of tools available in fish immunology, the project also aims at developing new molecular methods to understand the underlying mechanisms of the stress induced immune compromised fish. In addition, susceptibility to infections will be studied by challenge experiments with selected bacteria and viruses. Based on the results obtained in the experimental part of the project, operational husbandry protocols for improved welfare and health of farmed fish including early risk indicators of disease outbreak will be developed.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesfisheries
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologybacteriology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologyvirology
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineimmunology
- agricultural sciencesanimal and dairy sciencedomestic animalsanimal husbandry
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Call for proposal
FP6-2002-SSP-1
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
STREP - Specific Targeted Research ProjectCoordinator
BERGEN
Norway