review · Animals
Aquaculture contributes substantially to global food security, but farmed aquatic animals face numerous environmental and biological stressors that impair growth, lower productivity, and raise mortality rates. While antibiotics and chemical therapies have historically managed these challenges, their sustained use promotes bacterial resistance, disrupts native microbial populations, and accumulates harmful residues in aquatic ecosystems. Environmentally friendly dietary alternatives, specifically herbal essential oils, provide a viable substitute. These plant-derived oils contain bioactive compounds that exhibit strong antibacterial, antioxidative, and immunostimulant properties. Delivered through aquafeed, essential oils improve the health and well-being of diverse aquatic species. Research on commercial finfish shows that dietary supplementation enhances growth performance and strengthens immune responses. Evaluating the optimum dosages and the specific factors influencing efficacy allows these natural extracts to serve as functional feed additives, reducing reliance on conventional antibiotics in commercial fish farming.
Widespread antibiotic use in aquaculture threatens both aquatic ecosystems and human health by encouraging drug-resistant bacteria. Replacing antibiotics with natural plant extracts offers a sustainable method to protect farmed fish from diseases and stress. This approach supports global food production while maintaining environmental safety and reducing chemical contamination in food supply chains.
The primary application is the development of functional, natural feed additives for aquafeed manufacturers and commercial fish farmers. Because essential oils are already extensively tested in varied fish species to determine optimum doses and efficacy, the concept is in an applied stage of research with near-market relevance for commercial finfish diets seeking antibiotic-free alternatives.
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The aquaculture sector is one of the main activities contributing to food security for humanity around the globe. However, aquatic animals are susceptible to several farming stressors involved in deteriorated growth performance, reduced productivity, and eventually high mortality rates. In some countries still, antibiotics and chemotherapies are comprehensively applied to control biotic stressors. Aside from the apparent benefits, the continuous usage of antibiotics develops bacterial resistance, deteriorates bacterial populations, and accumulates these compounds in the aquatic environment. Alternatively, environmentally friendly additives were used to avoid the direct and indirect impacts on the aquatic ecosystem and human health. In aquaculture, medicinal herbs and extracts are extensively used and approved for their growth-promoting, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidative properties. Herbal essential oils contain many bioactive components with powerful antibacterial, antioxidative, and immunostimulant potentials, suggesting their application for aquatic animals. Essential oils can be provided via diet and can benefit aquatic animals by improving their well-being and health status. The use of essential oils in aquafeed has been studied in a variety of aquatic animals to determine their beneficial roles and optimum doses. The outputs illustrated that herbal essential oils are exciting alternatives to antibiotics with prominent growth promotion, antioxidative, and immunostimulant roles. Herein, we reviewed the beneficial roles of essential oils in aquaculture. This review also aims to describe trends in herbal essential oils use, mainly in commercial fish species, and to analyze different factors that affect essential oils' efficacy on the growth performance, antioxidative, and immune responses of finfish species.
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DOI: 10.3390/ani12070823
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