Rising water temperatures in the Mediterranean are creating conditions highly susceptible to the spread of established pathogens and the emergence of new infectious diseases in European aquaculture, according to a multinational team of researchers involved in the EU-funded Cure4Aqua Project.
This thermal increase has direct consequences for the health of farmed fish. As reported by the authors in Reviews in Aquaculture, Europe is currently one of the fastest-warming regions on the planet. “The European temperature is already -2.3ºC above the pre-industrial average… affecting seas, lakes, and rivers at a faster rate than in other continents”.
The study notes that “warming may boost the rate of disease transmission and its virulence by increasing pathogens’ fitness in weakened hosts”.
It also highlights that “higher temperatures are known to increase the virulence of specific pathogens”. The authors identify up to 28 microbial diseases – viral, bacterial, and parasitic – that could be favoured by the new climatic conditions.
These include pathogens of particular relevance to key European aquaculture species such as European seabass, gilthead seabream, Atlantic salmon, and turbot.
The paper also warns that cage-based production systems will be among the most exposed: “open water systems, such as cage fish farming… are expected to suffer more from the global warming effects”.
However, warming will not affect all diseases equally. Some cold-water pathogens may diminish, as “pathogens that favour lower water temperatures may decline with warming”.
Among the proposed mitigation strategies, the study points to the need for progress in “fish selective breeding, epigenetic programming, the development of new vaccines, and alternative treatments” to buffer the impact of rising temperatures on fish health.
Reference:
Rigos, G., Padrós, F., Constenla, M., Jerončić, A., Kogiannou, D., Consuegra, S., Adamek, M., & Mladineo, I. (2026). Global Warming Affects the Pathogenesis of Important Fish Diseases in European Aquaculture. Reviews in Aquaculture, 18, e70112. https://doi.org/10.1111/raq.70112
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