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Aquaculture 193 2001 383–384
www.elsevier.nlrlocateraqua-online
Book review
Microbial Processes in Aquaculture
Masachinka Maeda, Society for the Biological Creation and Enhancement of the Aquatic
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Environment BIOCREATE , Japan, 1999, v q 102 pp., ISBN 4-939119-21-1, US$13.00, Jap. Yen 1.300
This book is written to popularise the idea that an understanding of microbial ecology is an essential prerequisite in designing good aquacultural systems. The author argues, correctly in my opinion, that all fish and shellfish aquaculture takes place in environ-ments where changes in the complex microbial flora will play a major role in determining success or failure. Overall, the aim of this book seems to be to advocate the use of microbial probiotics in aquaculture. Thus, the book is based on sound ecological principles and could have been a refreshing alternative to the reductionist, pathogen-based approaches that so mar many books on fish health. There is a clear need for a book that develops this position but unfortunately, Microbial Processes in Aquaculture is not it. This book fails but I am torn between arguing that, in failing, it is useless or that it is dangerous. As a how-to-do-it manual the book provides too little information to be of any value thus it could be considered useless. On the other hand were anybody to attempt to perform the experiments recommended in it, based purely on the inadequate technical information provided, the results would probably be disastrous.
In its 87 pages the book attempts to cover too much ground and as a consequence is dangerously superficial in many areas. This superficiality is compounded by a total failure to identify its readership and the skill and technical expertise they are expected to have. In places the book appears to presume no previous knowledge of biology in the reader and at times reads like a poorly through out secondary school text. I find myself asking who would benefit from a 35-line description of the growth of prawn and crab larvae, 28 lines on the cultivation of algae or 44 on bacterial classification? Where are the readers who require to be taught what an agar plate is and the role of a loop in the culture of bacteria but who have access to a laminar flow cabinet and a Zeiss Universal Epifluorescent Microscope? The author has completely failed to work out whether he is aiming to provide a general guide to underlying principles or a technical manual. In the end, he fails in both.
The chapter covering probiotics is almost completely confined to an uncritical discussion of the authors own papers and, therefore, provide an inadequate and misleading account of this area of research. Even in this section the author fails to clearly identify his aims or his readership. Is he really expecting people who need basic instruction in microbial and larval growth techniques to isolate probiotic bacteria and to
0044-8486r01r$ - see front matterq2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
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Book reÕiew
384
employ them on a commercial scale? If this is the case then the naivete of sentences
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such as:AAccording to one hypothesis, bacteria which are able to repress the growth of other bacteria may also inhibit the growth of virusesB. are positively dangerous.The book is being distributed by the Society for the Biological Creation and
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Enhancement of the Aquatic Environment BIOCREATE an organisation that, I must admit I have not encountered before. I sincerely hope, however, that the general output of this organisation is of a greater standard of scientific sophistication and integrity than the material presented in the final chapter of the book. The final eight lines of the book, for example, provide an aspirational and uncritical description of a possible method of continuously inoculating seawater using a biofilter. The final sentence: AThis system also reduces the availability of a niche for pathogenic organismsB, is unsupported by any evidence and provides an illustration of the poor quality of most of the material presented.
This book is of little value to anybody who wishes to understand microbial ecology or who wishes to operate an aquaculture system in harmony with its environment. Unfortunately, some of the ideas it presents, such as the use of Bacillus subtilis bioreactors to increase the redox potential of anaerobic sediments, may be used by people with no scientific or practical experience as a ‘green’ stick to beat the aquacul-ture industry with. This will not lead to an improvement of the biological environment but to prolonged, sterile and unfruitful debates. Understanding microbial ecology and operating aquaculture systems in harmony with their environments will require hard, disciplined study not the publication of sloppy half-researched ideas.
Peter Smith)
Fish Desease Group, Department of Microbiology, NUI, Galway, Galway, Ireland E-mail address: peter.smith@nuigalway.ie
