Book review of "Fish diseases, Volumes 1 and 2." by J. C. Eiras, H. Segner, T. Wahli and G.B. Kapoor

Valtonen, E Tellervo

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Book review of "Fish diseases, Volumes 1 and 2." by J. C. Eiras, H. Segner, T. Wahli and G.B. Kapoor.peerReviewe

Valtonen, Tellervo

Jyväskylä University Digital Archive

        This is an electronic reprint of the original article.  This reprint may differ from the original in pagination and typographic detail.  Author(s):   Title:  Year: Version:   Please cite the original version:       All material supplied via JYX is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication or sale of all or part of any of the repository collections is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for your research use or educational purposes in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission for any other use. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, whether for sale or otherwise to anyone who is not an authorised user.  Review of "Fish diseases, Volumes 1 and 2." by  Jorge C. Eiras, Helmut Segner, ThomasWahli and G.B. KapoorValtonen, TellervoValtonen, T. (2009). Review of “Fish diseases, Volumes 1 and 2.” by Jorge C. Eiras,Helmut Segner, Thomas Wahli and G.B. Kapoor 2008. Parasites and Vectors, 2, 46.doi:10.1186/1756-3305-2-462009Published versionBioMed CentralssParasites & VectorsOpen AcceBook reviewReview of "Fish diseases, Volumes 1 and 2." by Jorge C. Eiras, Helmut Segner, Thomas Wahli and G.B. KapoorE Tellervo ValtonenAddress: Department of biologial and environmental science, University of Jyväskylä, PL 35 (Ambiotica) 40014 Jyväskylän yliopisto, FinlandEmail: E Tellervo Valtonen - e.tellervo.valtonen@jyu.fiAbstractBook review of "Fish diseases, Volumes 1 and 2." by J. C. Eiras, H. Segner, T. Wahli and G.B.Kapoor.Book detailsEiras JC, Segner H, Wahli T, Kapoor GB: Fish diseases Volume 1 and 2. Science Publishers, Enfield, Jersey, Plymouth; 2008:1312.  ISBN (set): 978-1-57808-438-8. ISBN (Vol. 1): 978-1-57808-527-9. ISBN (Vol. 2): 978-1-57808-528-6Book reviewParasitic diseases and parasites in general are enormous innumbers. In fact, parasites alone encompass more thanhalf of all known animal species. Accordingly, the agentscausing fish diseases are diverse, including viruses, bacte-ria, fungi and parasites.This set of two books aims to present disease-causingagents from all these major categories. The topic is wide asdiseases occur in freshwater and marine aquacultures aswell as in wild fish. Problems with disease are increasingdue to intensified fish farming and to many changes in theenvironment. Moreover, problems vary considerablybetween different geographic regions, aquaculture sys-tems, fish species, and societies. As such, the topic of thesebooks is most demanding and ambitious. Clearly,nobody can single-handedly handle all aspects of themost important fish diseases even in two books.The editors have succeeded in inviting qualified scientiststo write chapters on each disease group. The editors, threefrom Europe and one from India, have invited 28 scien-tists from 12 countries to write the books' 21 chapters. Six-teen scientists are from Europe, seven from the USA, twofrom Australia, and one each from Canada, South Africa,and Israel. The author(s) of each chapter often come fromthe same country or institute, and in a few cases, this isreflected in the content of the chapter; the problems ofhis/her region are given considerable attention. It mighthave been beneficial to add one more scientist represent-ing a different system or latitude to each topic.Every group of disease agents has its own peculiarities, e.g.viruses and bacteria need a different kind of approachthan parasites. Accordingly, there is much variation in thecomposition of the chapters. Nonetheless, I found thetreatment of different groups disproportionate in somecases. For example, about 200 pages in three chapters aregiven to viral diseases (in salmonids, cyprinids and cul-tured marine fish, all comprehensive and good chapters),but this is not in balance with the 40 pages spent on bac-terial diseases. Up-to-date information on many impor-tant bacterial diseases was missing, such as yersiniosis(caused by Yersinia ruckeri), columnaris disease (caused byFlavobacteria columnaris) and cold water disease (caused byFlavobacteria psychrophilum). The two latter species arecausing increasing problems for the fish farming industryin wide areas of the Northern hemisphere. New moleculartools have improved diagnosis of these diseases and madeit possible to conduct experiments, which I had expectedPublished: 2 October 2009Parasites & Vectors 2009, 2:46 doi:10.1186/1756-3305-2-46Received: 18 September 2009Accepted: 2 October 2009This article is available from: http://www.parasitesandvectors.com/content/2/1/46© 2009 Valtonen; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Page 1 of 2(page number not for citation purposes)Parasites & Vectors 2009, 2:46 http://www.parasitesandvectors.com/content/2/1/46Publish with BioMed Central   and  every scientist can read your work free of charge"BioMed Central will be the most significant development for disseminating the results of biomedical research in our lifetime."Sir Paul Nurse, Cancer Research UKYour research papers will be:available free of charge to the entire biomedical communitypeer reviewed and published immediately upon acceptancecited in PubMed and archived on PubMed Central yours — you keep the copyrightSubmit your manuscript here:http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/publishing_adv.aspBioMedcentralto be reviewed. There has apparently been a delay betweenwriting the articles and printing the books.The chapter on fungal diseases is interesting, comprehen-sive and well written. It also includes some discussion ontherapy and control methods. Parasites in volume 1 arehandled in five chapters: Microsporidia, Ameboid pro-tists, Flagellates, Apicomplexans and Ciliaphora. All ofthem are enjoyable to read, well written and up-to-date.Flagellates are handled especially comprehensively, asthey are important disease agents in freshwater andmarine aquaculture. I would have liked a similarly thor-ough handling of Ciliaphora. The flagellate chapter takesnearly 100 pages while the ciliate chapter is only about 30pages long. The ciliate causing white spot disease (Ichthy-ophthirius multifiliis) is discussed at length. However, themethods described to treat it are not up-to-date. It is notmentioned, for example, that malachite green is strictlyprohibited by EU legislation. In large fish farms, at least inthe Northern hemisphere, parasite numbers are kept lowwith formalin baths for 3-4 weeks, during which time fishdevelop immunity. This common practice is also not dis-cussed.In volume 2 there are 10 chapters; seven on particular par-asite groups, as well as chapters for non-infectious dis-eases, environmental diseases and guides for aquacultureveterinarians (why not for biologists working at farms?).The chapters in this volume are more demanding in thesense that there is much variability in the biology of thegroups handled, which are Myxozoa, Monogenea, Dige-nea, Cestoda, Acanthocephala, Nematoda and Crustacea.These groups also vary greatly in their importance as dis-ease agents. However, if the book had been restricted toonly those species causing problems in aquaculture, itwould have been much more boring. Parasites also haveimportant effects on wild fish, though they are not as dra-matic as in cultured fish. I very much enjoyed that formost of the important taxonomic groups several aspectsof their biology were covered, including general morphol-ogy, life cycles, classification, host range and distribution,diseases caused in freshwater and marine systems, and indifferent fish groups, treatment and prophylaxis, as well asprospects for future research. These are not handled in allcases, however; especially in the chapter on Cestodespathogenesis is emphasized over the other topics.The fact is that fish stocks all over the world are threatenedby overfishing. This means that both freshwater andmarine aquaculture will expand and intensify. At the sametime, global warming and other environmental changeswill influence the emergence and occurrence of diseases.Fish farms are places where many epidemiological factorsmay drive disease agents towards higher virulence. Giventhese challenges, these books are helpful for fish farmers,researchers, university students and state officials workingon fish diseases.Competing interestsThe author declares that she has no competing interests.AcknowledgementsDr. Daniel Benesh kindly checked the English of this review.Page 2 of 2(page number not for citation purposes)

Review of "Fish diseases, Volumes 1 and 2." by  Jorge C. Eiras, Helmut Segner, Thomas Wahli and G.B. Kapoor

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Review of "Fish diseases, Volumes 1 and 2." by Jorge C. Eiras, Helmut Segner, Thomas Wahli and G.B. Kapoor

Abstract Book review of "Fish diseases, Volumes 1 and 2." by J. C. Eiras, H. Segner, T. Wahli and G.B. Kapoor.</p

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