Environmental Influence in Physiological, Endocrine and Oxidative Stress Responses in Fish

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Aquatic Animals".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2026 | Viewed by 493

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Geological Survey Western Fisheries Research Center, Columbia River Research Laboratory, Cook, WA 98605, USA
Interests: salmonid disease; microbiomes; gene expression; environmental factors; fish health and behavior; dams; reservoirs; Pacific salmon disease; population recovery; pre-spawning mortality; ecological and social drivers and consequences of fish health

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Across the globe, aquatic environments are rapidly changing and altering the landscape of stressors experienced by fish and other aquatic animals. Changes include alterations to thermal and flow regimes, habitat fragmentation, nutrient loading and eutrophication, plastic pollution, ocean acidification, altered species distributions, increased aquaculture production, and many other trends that are directly or indirectly caused by humans. Understanding how fish respond to stressors at the molecular and physiological levels is critical to understanding and predicting population-level responses to environmental change.

In this Special Issue, we invite original research and review articles that evaluate environmental effects on the stress responses of fish, including physiological, endocrine, and oxidative stress responses. We especially welcome articles that link environmental stressors and stress responses with disease susceptibility, growth, reproductive success, or other fitness outcomes. Submitted research may include controlled experiments or observational studies conducted in laboratories, aquaculture facilities, or natural environments.

Dr. Claire E. Couch
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • fish health
  • stress
  • physiology
  • fitness
  • environmental change

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 12731 KB  
Article
RNA-Seq Revealed the Effects of Cold Stress on Different Brain Regions of Leiocassis longirostris
by Senyue Liu, Qiang Li, Yongqiang Deng, Zhongwei Wang, Yang Feng, Zhongmeng Zhao, Han Zhao, Lu Zhang, Yuanliang Duan, Zhipeng Huang, Jian Zhou and Chengyan Mou
Animals 2025, 15(14), 2107; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15142107 - 16 Jul 2025
Viewed by 324
Abstract
Cold shock represents a prevalent but harmful environmental stress factor that poses significant threats to fish survival and reproductive success. In fish, the brain acts as a central regulator of thermoregulatory processes. Nevertheless, how different brain regions respond molecularly to cold exposure remains [...] Read more.
Cold shock represents a prevalent but harmful environmental stress factor that poses significant threats to fish survival and reproductive success. In fish, the brain acts as a central regulator of thermoregulatory processes. Nevertheless, how different brain regions respond molecularly to cold exposure remains largely unknown. To address this, this study systematically investigated the effects of acute cold stress on five specific brain regions of Leiocassis longirostris using RNA-seq. The findings demonstrated that all five brain regions were significantly impacted by cold treatment, with the mesencephalon (MB) showing the most substantial changes. GO and KEGG enrichment analyses indicated that cold stress disrupted processes including gene expression regulation, circadian rhythms, and immune function within brain tissues. Through Weighted Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis (WGCNA), the MB was identified as the core responsive region, and the brain’s reaction to cold stress was strongly correlated with circadian rhythm, spliceosome, and ubiquitination. In summary, our investigation demonstrates that the MB represents a principal region for cold stress response in L. longirostris, involving alterations in circadian clocks, immune function, and inflammatory responses, alongside suppression of gene expression processes and ubiquitination-mediated proteolysis. Full article
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