The principal of Universitat de València, Esteban Morcillo, opened this morning the 9º International Symposium on Fish Parasites in the room Charles Darwin of the Burjassot-Paterna Campus. In the official act have also participated the general director of University, Research, and Science of the Valencian Government, Josefina Bueno; the delegate of CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) in the Valencian Community, José Pío Beltrán; and the director of the congress, the full university professor Juan Antonio Raga.
Josefina Bueno, in her first public intervention as general director, emphasised “the commitment of the new government of the Valencian Community with the public universities and their scientific parks” because “the research, the technological transfer, and the diffusion of the scientific knowledge constitute essential factors for a new productive, economic, and social model”. For his part, Esteban Morcillo thanked Bueno “for the support to the Valencian university public system and also to her research system”, at the same time that has emphasised “the intense scientific collaboration of the Universitat de València with CSIC, which is embodied both with this international symposium and with the joint participation in the VLC/International Campus of Excellence or the led research in mixed centres”.
José Pío Beltrán used his intervention to emphasise the relevance that our society has “both healthy plants and fish to face the new global challenges, for example, the food security and the climate change”. In consequence, “it is key to guarantee the balance of the ecosystems and to favour a sustainable aquaculture”, he stated.
Professor Jerri Bartholomew from the University of Oregon (EE.UU.), in charge of the opening conference, has addressed the future impact that will have climate change on the extension of parasitism in the fish populations. Bartholomew insisted on “the complexity of relationships between fishes and their parasites, as well as the need of progressing in the elaboration of models that would provide evolution patterns with the aim of avoiding their impacts”.
The increase of the water temperature “is not the only factor we have to take into account, since climate change can also cause alterations in the patterns of the flow of water flows, modify the inputs of nutrients and increase the eutrophication, affect the rates of parasite condition or reduce their mortality”, argued professor Bartholomew.
SCIENTISTS FROM 54 COUNTRIES
More than 300 scientist from 54 countries will participate until Friday on this symposium organised by Universitat de València and CSIC. The congress will deal with basic aspects applied to the fish parasitology, including issues as the impact of these infections on the aquaculture and fisheries sector, or their incidence in the quality of the production and the nutritional health.
The director of the organising committee of the symposium, Juan Antonio Raga, full university professor in Zoology of Universitat de València, claims that the fishes represent the group of vertebrates of bigger biological diversity, therefore, “it is no wonder that it has the biggest diversity of parasitic species”. This symposium aims to analyse the last advances on the different aspects of this field to establish the new challenges in the fishes parasitology in the years to come.
The action of these pathogens have also various aspects that affect human beings. On the one side, according to Raga, “some species can be transmitted to people and cause zoonosis, as the well known ‘Anisakis’ and other similar parasitic ways that can affect us only when ingesting raw or slightly cooked fish or in the case of the people specially sensitive to these food allergies”. Nevertheless, the role of some of these pathogens in the fish farms is also important, especially in the installations with great densities of fish and that are produced in cages in the sea.
SURVIVAL OF THE EUROOPEAN EEL
From the environmental point of view, the parasites of the fishes play an important part regulating in a natural way the population and sometimes they can compromise the survival of their host fishes. “This is the case of the European eel, which is being seriously threatened as a consequence of the appearance of a kind of invader nematode that comes from Japan and that, through the imports across different countries, has been transmitted and widespread through the eel population of the whole continent”, indicates Raga, also director of the Science and Technologic Park of Universitat de València.
NEW CHALLENGES FOR FISHING AND AQUACULTURE
The scientific programme of the symposium includes diverse disciplines and research fields linked to the fish parasites, although it will be paid a special attention to the new challenges of parasitology on the fisheries sector, due to its connection with the nutritional health.
The researchers Ariadna Sitjà-Bobadilla and Oswaldo Palenzuela from the Institute of Aquaculture "Torre de la Sal" (CSIC - Spanish National Research Council), members of the scientific and organiser committees of the congress, emphasise the variety of issues that will be addressed, among them, the biodiversity; the taxonomy of different parasite groups, their biology and life cycles; the interactions host-parasite; the illnesses caused by parasites in aquaculture and natural ecosystems; the use of parasites as bioindicators of the ecosystems and fisheries; or the impact of the global changes and the human activities on the fishes and their parasitefauna in different regions of the planet.
THE FIRST EDITION IN SPAIN
This symposium takes place every four years and the one in Valencia will be the first in Spain and the second in Europe, since 12 years ago was hosted by Italy. It is a meeting that takes place in different places of the world since 1983. The prior meeting took place in Viña del Mar (Chile) where among several proposals the Universitat de València was selected -defended by professors Francisco Moreno and Ana Pérez del Olmo, also important members of the scientific and organiser committees of the congress- to host the next symposium as a recognition to the research trajectory that is carried out in this academic institution.
In the congress, 150 oral communications and 200 posters divided in 33 sessions to promote the scientific discussion and debate will be presented. Four workshops and four international forums have been organised to present and pose collaboration joint projects. Besides, eight invited talks as the one of the professor Jerri Bartholomew from the University of Oregon (EE.UU.), who will talk about the future impact that will have climate change on the extension of the parasitism in the fish populations; the one of the professor Barbara Nowak from the University of Tasmania (Australia), who will expose the future and limitations of the fish farming specially of big tuna because of the action of their parasites; or the one of the professor Frank Nilsen from the University of Oslo (Norway), who will expose the new approximations for the control of the parasite crustaceans of the salmon, which is the most important limiting factor of the productions of this fish of regular consumption because they cause losses running to millions.
Among the sponsors of this 9º International Symposium of fish parasites are the Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology and the Faculty of Biological Sciences of Universitat de València, the VLC/International Campus of Excellence, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Government of the Valencian Community, and the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Centre fro Agricultural Bioscience International and the firms VWR and Andromeda Group.
Last update: 1 de september de 2015 13:00.
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