REVIEW article
Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbes and Innate Immunity
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2025.1639426
Symbiotic Strategies: Deciphering the Role of Gut Microbiota in the Nutrition and Metabolism of Fish and Shellfish
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences, Solan, India
- 2ICAR - Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture, Chennai, India
- 3National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The gastrointestinal microbiota is crucial for the health and physiology of aquatic organisms, influencing their nutrition, metabolism, and immune responses. This review compares the diversity and function of gut microbial communities in finfish and shellfish, highlighting differences between freshwater and marine species as well as variations within shellfish taxa. We examine how these microbes aid in digesting complex dietary substrates, assimilating nutrients, and synthesizing essential metabolites, all of which are vital for host health. The structure of these microbial communities is shaped by a complex interplay of environmental factors, such as water temperature, salinity, and pH, and host-specific factors, including genetics and diet. A comprehensive understanding of these interactions is key to improving gut health and nutrient use in aquaculture. This review also identifies future research directions, focusing on the use of probiotics, prebiotics, and dietary interventions. These strategies, combined with multi-omics approaches, have great potential to enhance the sustainability of aquaculture by improving growth performance, feed conversion efficiency, and disease resistance in farmed aquatic species.
Keywords: Gut Microbiota, nutrition, Microbial Diversity, Metabolism, environmentalfactors, Aquaculture sustainability, innate immunity
Received: 02 Jun 2025; Accepted: 12 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rai, Kachore, Julka, Panigrahi, Das and Nan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Sofia Priyadarsani Das, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan
Fan-Hua Nan, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.