article · Sustainability
Global demand for oysters is expanding as consumers seek nutritious alternatives to land-based animal protein, driven by an interest in sustainable seafood. However, the oyster aquaculture sector faces severe operational risks from rising rates of infectious disease linked to climate change, pollution, and wider environmental stress. Increasing ocean temperatures create environments where bacteria and viruses multiply and disperse rapidly. These environmental shifts alter microbial communities, disrupt the physiological functions and biochemical pathways of oysters, and increase their vulnerability to infection. Consequently, elevated mortality and degraded product quality threaten farm output and financial returns. Such biological disruptions risk reducing market supply, destabilising seafood prices, and imposing additional costs on producers who must invest in new disease management protocols to maintain commercial viability across the global industry.
Oysters are an important source of sustainable protein, but warming waters are amplifying microbial diseases that threaten their survival. When disease outbreaks reduce harvests, seafood supply drops and prices rise. Understanding how changing environmental conditions harm oyster health helps the aquaculture sector anticipate biological threats and protect the long-term food security and economic benefits tied to marine farming.
The findings inform aquaculture operators, aquatic animal health companies, and marine biosecurity managers seeking to mitigate climate-related crop losses. While providing a global assessment rather than a direct technological product, the evidence underlines an immediate commercial requirement for enhanced pathogen monitoring tools, biosecurity protocols, and disease management interventions. Because the work is a review identifying operational challenges and potential future directions, practical implementation remains at an early diagnostic stage.
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Recently, global demand for seafood such oysters is increasing as consumers seek healthy and nutritive alternatives to a diet dominated by animal protein. This trend is attributed to the growing interest in sustainable seafood strategies and a surge in customer demand. Despite oysters being one of the most promising seafoods, the oyster industry faces various challenges, such as increased infectious diseases promoted by climate change, pollution, and environmental burdens. Hence, the industry’s current challenges must be addressed to ensure long-term viability. One of the current challenges in the production industry (in response to climate change) is mortality or poor product quality from microbial infection. This review reveals that climate change fosters pathogen development, significantly impacting disease spread, host susceptibility, and the survival rates of oysters. Rising temperatures, driven by climate, create favourable conditions for bacteria and viruses to multiply and spread quickly, making oysters more susceptible to diseases and ultimately adversely affecting the oyster industry. Climate-induced changes in oyster-associated microbes and pathogens, coupled with disruptions in biochemical pathways and physiological functions, can lead to increased disease outbreaks and reduced survival in the industry, impacting production and profitability. These adverse effects could result in decreased oyster supply, potentially affecting seafood markets and prices, and necessitate additional investments in disease management strategies. This review identifies and highlights how aquatic pathogens promoted by climate change will affect the oyster industry on a global scale. This review also presents an in-depth global assessment of climate change’s impacts on oysters relative to their disease exposure and pathogen spread and identifies possible future directions.
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DOI: 10.3390/su151712775
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