Stress, heat shock proteins & biotechnological
interventions.
In: Winter School on
Impact of Climate Change on Indian Marine Fisheries held at CMFRI, Cochin 18.1.2008 to 7.2.2008
Fish are exposed to stressors in nature, as well as in artificial conditions such as in aquaculture, or in
the laboratory. The increasing contamination of bodies of natural freshwater and marine ecosystem around
the world by anthropogenic substances is one category of environmental stressor. Various stressors, such as
grading, transportation, and vaccination, are necessary components of modern intensive fish culture. The
response of the fish to such stressors involves all levels of organization, from the cell, to the individual
organism, to the structure of the population. In as much as the responses of the fish to a stressor is the
essence of maintaining homeostasis, it is not surprising that fish respond to a variety of stressors in a
generalized way at all these levels of organization. Stress is most often associated with a negative perspective.
This is natural as the word and concept in common use is generally associated with a system that is severely
challenged, and often fatigued. Experimental biologists are all involved in the practice of systematically
imposing some perturbation and measuring a response