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Special Issue "Applications of Physiological Tools to Assess the Welfare of Crustaceans, Mollusks and Fish"

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2022) | Viewed by 6956

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Dr. Ismael Jerez-Cepa

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Guest Editor

Department of Biology, Faculty of Marine and Environmental Sciences, International Campus of Excellence in Marine Science (CEI•MAR), University of Cádiz, E11510 Puerto Real, Spain
Interests: welfare biomarkers; stress physiology; fish metabolism; glucocorticoids; energy management; aquaculture improvement
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Dr. Ignacio Ruiz-Jarabo

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Guest Editor

Department of Animal Physiology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University Complutense, E28040 Madrid, Spain
Interests: cephalopods; crustaceans; elasmobranchs; physiology; stress; teleosts; welfare

Dr. Leandro Rodríguez-Viera

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Guest Editor

Center for Marine Research, University of Havana, Havana, Cuba
Interests: physiology; crustaceans; fish; energy metabolism; digestion; digestive enzymes; immunology; diet development; aquaculture improvement

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Society is increasingly aware of animal welfare, especially that of animals used as a source of protein for human consumption. In aquatic environments, welfare is not always easy to assess for some of the main species that interact with humans. Classical tools related to emotional state and animal behavior have been well developed for fish, but this methodology has yet to be developed with certainty for other relevant groups, such as mollusks and crustaceans. We recently addressed this issue in a general review of the potential of physiological tools to assess the welfare of major aquatic taxonomic groups associated with human activity (10.3390/biology10010061). Through this Special Issue, we want to explore this aspect more deeply through original research articles or specific reviews focused on the application of physiological and cellular responses to stress to assess welfare in mollusks, crustaceans, and fishes. Special attention will be given to those papers and reviews focused on the application of physiological tools to improve animal welfare in aquaculture, fisheries, research, and exhibition.

Dr. Ismael Jerez-Cepa
Dr. Ignacio Ruiz-Jarabo
Dr. Leandro Rodríguez-Viera
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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Keywords

aquaculture
cephalopods
crustaceans
dipnoans
elasmobranchs
fisheries
mollusks
stress physiology
teleosts
welfare

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

Open AccessArticle

Adipose Fin as a Natural “Optical Window” for Implantation of Fluorescent Sensors into Salmonid Fish

Yaroslav Rzhechitskiy

and

Ekaterina Borvinskaya

Animals 2022, 12(21), 3042; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12213042 - 05 Nov 2022

Viewed by 1015

Abstract

Implantable optical sensors are emerging tools that have the potential to enable constant real-time monitoring of various internal physiological parameters. Such a possibility will open new horizons for health control not only in medicine, but also in animal husbandry, including aquaculture. In this study, we analyze different organs of commonly farmed rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) as implantation sites for fluorescent sensors and propose the adipose fin, lacking an endoskeleton, as the optimal choice. The fin is highly translucent due to significantly thinner dermis, which makes the detectable fluorescence of an implanted sensor operating at the visible light range by more than an order of magnitude higher relative to the skin. Compared to the proximal parts of ray fins, the adipose fin provides easy implantation and visualization of the sensor. Finally, we tested fluorescent pH sensors inside the adipose fin and demonstrated the possibility of acquiring their signal with a simple hand-held device and without fish anesthesia. All these features will most likely make the adipose fin the main “window” into the internal physiological processes of salmonid fish with the help of implantable optical sensors. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Physiological Tools to Assess the Welfare of Crustaceans, Mollusks and Fish)

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Open AccessArticle

Automated Cardiac Chamber Size and Cardiac Physiology Measurement in Water Fleas by U-Net and Mask RCNN Convolutional Networks

Ferry Saputra

Ali Farhan

Michael Edbert Suryanto

Kevin Adi Kurnia

Kelvin H.-C. Chen

Ross D. Vasquez

Marri Jmelou M. Roldan

Jong-Chin Huang

Yih-Kai Lin

and

Chung-Der Hsiao

Animals 2022, 12(13), 1670; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12131670 - 29 Jun 2022

Viewed by 1346

Abstract

Water fleas are an important lower invertebrate model that are usually used for ecotoxicity studies. Contrary to mammals, the heart of a water flea has a single chamber, which is relatively big in size and with fast-beating properties. Previous cardiac chamber volume measurement methods are primarily based on ImageJ manual counting at systolic and diastolic phases which suffer from low efficiency, high variation, and tedious operation. This study provides an automated and robust pipeline for cardiac chamber size estimation by a deep learning approach. Image segmentation analysis was performed using U-Net and Mask RCNN convolutional networks on several different species of water fleas such as Moina sp., Daphnia magna, and Daphnia pulex. The results show that Mask RCNN performs better than U-Net at the segmentation of water fleas’ heart chamber in every parameter tested. The predictive model generated by Mask RCNN was further analyzed with the Cv2.fitEllipse function in OpenCV to perform a cardiac physiology assessment of Daphnia magna after challenging with the herbicide of Roundup. Significant increase in normalized stroke volume, cardiac output, and the shortening fraction was observed after Roundup exposure which suggests the possibility of heart chamber alteration after roundup exposure. Overall, the predictive Mask RCNN model established in this study provides a convenient and robust approach for cardiac chamber size and cardiac physiology measurement in water fleas for the first time. This innovative tool can offer many benefits to other research using water fleas for ecotoxicity studies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Physiological Tools to Assess the Welfare of Crustaceans, Mollusks and Fish)

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Open AccessArticle

Acute Stress in Lesser-Spotted Catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula Linnaeus, 1758) Promotes Amino Acid Catabolism and Osmoregulatory Imbalances

Ignacio Ruiz-Jarabo

José A. Paullada-Salmerón

Ismael Jerez-Cepa

José Belquior Gonçalves Neto

Jason S. Bystriansky

and

Juan M. Mancera

Animals 2022, 12(9), 1192; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12091192 - 06 May 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1089

Abstract

Acute-stress situations in vertebrates induce a series of physiological responses to cope with the event. While common secondary stress responses include increased catabolism and osmoregulatory imbalances, specific processes depend on the taxa. In this sense, these processes are still largely unknown in ancient vertebrates such as marine elasmobranchs. Thus, we challenged the lesser spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) to 18 min of air exposure, and monitored their recovery after 0, 5, and 24 h. This study describes amino acid turnover in the liver, white muscle, gills, and rectal gland, and plasma parameters related to energy metabolism and osmoregulatory imbalances. Catsharks rely on white muscle amino acid catabolism to face the energy demand imposed by the stressor, producing NH₄⁺. While some plasma ions (K⁺, Cl⁻ and Ca²⁺) increased in concentration after 18 min of air exposure, returning to basal values after 5 h of recovery, Na⁺ increased after just 5 h of recovery, coinciding with a decrease in plasma NH₄⁺. These changes were accompanied by increased activity of a branchial amiloride-sensitive ATPase. Therefore, we hypothesize that this enzyme may be a Na⁺/H⁺ exchanger (NHE) related to NH₄⁺ excretion. The action of an omeprazole-sensitive ATPase, putatively associated to a H⁺/K⁺-ATPase (HKA), is also affected by these allostatic processes. Some complementary experiments were carried out to delve a little deeper into the possible branchial enzymes sensitive to amiloride, including in vivo and ex vivo approaches, and partial sequencing of a nhe1 in the gills. This study describes the possible presence of an HKA enzyme in the rectal gland, as well as a NHE in the gills, highlighting the importance of understanding the relationship between acute stress and osmoregulation in elasmobranchs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Physiological Tools to Assess the Welfare of Crustaceans, Mollusks and Fish)

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Open AccessArticle

Effect of Fish Stock Density on Hormone Genes Expression from Brain and Gastrointestinal Tract of Salmo salar

and

Animals 2022, 12(9), 1174; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12091174 - 04 May 2022

Viewed by 1154

Abstract

A variety of long-term stress conditions may exist in fish cultivation, some of which are so severe that fish can no longer reestablish homeostasis. In teleost fish, the brain and gastrointestinal tract integrate signals that include the perception of stress factors regulating physiological responses, such as social stress by fish population density, where peripheral and central signals, such as peptide hormones, are the main regulators. Therefore, we proposed in this study to analyze the effect of different stock densities (SD) in the gene expression of brain neuropeptide Y (NPY) and calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), together with the gastrointestinal peptide hormones leptin (Lep), vasointestinal peptide (VIP), and protachykinin-1 (Prk-1) in Salmo salar post-smolt. The coding sequence of S. salar VIP and Prk-1 precursors were firstly cloned and characterized. Then, the mRNA expression of these genes, together with the NPY, Lep, and CGRP genes, were evaluated in post-smolts kept at 11 Kg/m³, 20 Kg/m³, and 40 Kg/m³. At 14 days of culture, the brain CGRP and liver leptin mRNA levels increased three and tenfold in the post-smolt salmons kept at the highest SD, respectively. The high levels of leptin were kept during all the fish culture experiments. In addition, the highest expression of intestine VIP mRNA was obtained on Day 21 in the group of 40 Kg/m³ returning to baseline on Day 40. In terms of stress biochemical parameters, cortisol levels were increased in the 20 Kg/m³ and 40 Kg/m³ groups on Day 40 and were the highest in the 20 Kg/m³ group on Day 14. This study provides new insight into the gastrointestinal signals that could be affected by chronic stress induced by high stock density in fish farming. Thus, the expression of these peptide hormones could be used as molecular markers to improve production practices in fish aquaculture. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Physiological Tools to Assess the Welfare of Crustaceans, Mollusks and Fish)

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Open AccessArticle

Differential Metabolic and Transcriptional Responses of Gilthead Seabream (Sparus aurata) Administered with Cortisol or Cortisol-BSA

Jorge Aedo

Daniela Aravena-Canales

Ignacio Ruiz-Jarabo

Ricardo Oyarzún

Alfredo Molina

Gonzalo Martínez-Rodríguez

Juan Antonio Valdés

and

Juan Miguel Mancera

Animals 2021, 11(11), 3310; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11113310 - 19 Nov 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1201

Abstract

Cortisol is the main glucocorticoid hormone promoting compensatory metabolic responses of stress in teleosts. This hormone acts through genomic and membrane-initiated actions to exert its functions inside the cell. Experimental approaches, using exogenous cortisol administration, confirm the role of this hormone during short (minutes to hours)- and long-term (days to weeks) responses to stress. The role of membrane-initiated cortisol signaling during long-term responses has been recently explored. In this study, Sparus aurata were intraperitoneally injected with coconut oil alone or coconut oil containing cortisol, cortisol-BSA, or BSA. After 3 days of treatment, plasma, liver, and skeletal muscle were extracted. Plasma cortisol, as well as metabolic indicators in the plasma and tissues collected, and metabolism-related gene expression, were measured. Our results showed that artificially increased plasma cortisol levels in S. aurata enhanced plasma glucose and triacylglycerols values as well as hepatic substrate energy mobilization. Additionally, cortisol stimulated hepatic carbohydrates metabolism, as seen by the increased expression of metabolism-related genes. All of these responses, observed in cortisol-administered fish, were not detected by replicating the same protocol and instead using cortisol-BSA, which exclusively induces membrane-initiated effects. Therefore, we suggest that after three days of cortisol administration, only genomic actions are involved in the metabolic responses in S. aurata. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Physiological Tools to Assess the Welfare of Crustaceans, Mollusks and Fish)

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