Stress, heat shock proteins & biotechnological interventions. In: Winter School on Impact of Climate Change on Indian Marine Fisheries held at CMFRI, Cochin 18.1.2008 to 7.2.2008

Fish are exposed to stressors in nature, as well as in artificial conditions such as in aquaculture, or in the laboratory. The increasing contamination of bodies of natural freshwater and marine ecosystem around the world by anthropogenic substances is one category of environmental stressor. Various stressors, such as grading, transportation, and vaccination, are necessary components of modern intensive fish culture. The response of the fish to such stressors involves all levels of organization, from the cell, to the individual organism, to the structure of the population. In as much as the responses of the fish to a stressor is the essence of maintaining homeostasis, it is not surprising that fish respond to a variety of stressors in a generalized way at all these levels of organization. Stress is most often associated with a negative perspective. This is natural as the word and concept in common use is generally associated with a system that is severely challenged, and often fatigued. Experimental biologists are all involved in the practice of systematically imposing some perturbation and measuring a response