Climate Change: A Cause for Emergence and Re-Emergence of Seafood Pathogen with Altered Pathogenicity

Abstract

Changes in the global climate have been a critical factor in the deterioration of the marine environment, which directly and indirectly impacts fish stocks and alters the growth, reproductive capability, and mortality of fish, significantly affecting the quantity of fish output. So, migration and introduction of new species are widely debated and adequately addressed. But there is trifling information on the effect of climate change on the emergence of seafood pathogens. The recent prediction analysis states that there will be a significant alteration in seafood safety by the emergence of pathogenic bacteria. Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts an average temperature rise from 1.8oC to 4oC due to climate change (IPCC, 2007); this would provide insight into possible predictions over the change in seafood pathogens. But, the prediction of the impact of climate on seafood pathogens is complex owing to the combined effect of physical, biological, behaviors and environment. The average pH of the ocean would drop to 8.5, i.e., around 0.1 units from the pre-industrial period due to the excess CO2 being dissolved in the ocean and making towards acidic (Kintisch and Stokstad, 2008). It is predicted that analysis says that the pH will fall around 0.4 units from the existing pH by A.D. 2100. The drop in pH and a hike in marine environment temperature would negatively affect aquatic life (Hammond and Hofmann, 2012). Changes in phytoplankton communities provide a sensitive early warning for climate-driven perturbations to marine ecosystems (Hallegraeff, 2010.) So, comprehensive analyses of physical, chemical, genomes and temporal–spatial scales are necessary for the understanding of the role of micro-organisms in oceanic ecosystems.