Research Information System
The Fifth International Mediterranean Symposium on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Nevşehir, Turkey, 24 - 26 July 2019, pp.86, (Summary Text)
For a long time, disinfectants and antibiotics have been used effectively for the treatment of fish diseases. It has been revealed that overuse of chemicals carry potential risks such as environmental problems, residual accumulation in tissue, resistance to antibiotics, and reduction of the efficiency. These problems have led some researchers and fish farmers to consider alternative natural sources from plants that would minimize environmental harm while allowing increased aquaculture production. Main problems of aquaculture production are high stock density and consequently the decrease in water quality, the increase of stress and infection risk. After the occurrence of an infection, the control and treatment are more challenging, and it leads to mass deaths and economic losses. Because of the difficulties in treatment, prophylactic methods like vaccination or immunostimulants have gained importance in the protection of fish health.
It has been shown that the use of immunostimulants can be an effective tool for increasing the resistance of fish against disease. İmmunostimulant medicinal plants have been reported to stimulate non-specific immune mechanisms also have additional effects like stimulation appetite or weight gain and also antibacterial and antiparasitic properties due to alkaloids, flavonoids, terpenoids and saponins. The advantage of stimulating nonspecific immune response is that it acts against all pathogens since it is not selective for against only specific agents and it can be used in different kinds of aquaculture systems conveniently.
The aim of this presentation is to give information about the medicinal plants, plant extracts, application methods and the mode of actions on the nonspecific immune system of fish.
Keywords: Immunostimulant, Medicinal Plants, Aquaculture.