Katja Anttila is a professor of animal physiology in University of Turku. She did her PhD in University of Oulu and her post-doc in Vancouver, Canada. She has been studying the exercise training effects on fish and their cardiovascular capacities for last 20 years.
Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing food production industries. However, it is facing challenges with climate change causing reduced water oxygen levels and warming in fish hatcheries. Same environmental challenges are threating also wild fish and stocking programs where hatchery fish are transplanted to nature. These environmental stressors are observed to cause fish die-offs both in aquaculture and nature. There is, thus, an urgent need to address the challenges. One physiological reason leading to mortalities could be a failure in fish’s cardiovascular performance. The hatchery fish are especially concerned since current rearing practices, with unlimited food and no need to swim, have caused impairments in their cardiovascular and muscular systems. Having low cardiovascular and swimming muscle capacities could also reduce the survival changes of hatchery fish in nature in stocking programs. One way to enhance the cardiovascular and muscular performance of fish in hatcheries could be exercise training. In this talk I will review how exercise training is influencing the cardiovascular system and also the swimming muscles of fish. In my group we have been studying these aspects from molecular to whole animal level and also followed how training is influencing the migration patterns and survival changes of the fish in stocking programs. Exercise training can enhance the physiological capacities of fish in various ways – however, it is important that training is done with correct, species-specific, intensity.
