New Vistas in Fish Reproduction and Molecular Endocrinology: Mechanisms and Applications

Demand for fish production is increasing significantly throughout the world and fish production from capture fisheries has almost stagnated. Aquaculture is the only possibility to meet this ever growing demand for fish. Still, there are many commercially important food fishes being captured from the wild, and the breeding and seed production technologies are not available for many fish species. The bottle neck in successful breeding of fish species is mainly due to the non-availability of information about the reproductive physiology of the species. The further expansion of aquaculture requires species diversification and, in order to achieve this, the understanding of fish reproductive biology, endocrine function of fish, gonadal maturity, and gamete quality are highly essential. The research findings on fish reproduction and molecular endocrinology will have direct benefits in captive maturation, breeding, and quality seed production of fishes. Application of modern endocrinological and molecular approaches such as recombinant GnRH, Kisspeptin, aquaporins, miRNAs, epigenetics, etc., has vitally contributed to the progress of fish reproduction research. The advances in fish reproduction and molecular endocrinology research will open the door to innovative techniques in aquaculture for successful captive breeding and seed production of fishes for sustainable aquaculture development.

This Research Topic aims to bring recent advanced studies in fish reproductive physiology and endocrinological research. The collection will cover various aspects of broodstock management, sex determination and differentiation, stimulatory and inhibitory hormones and receptors, sex genes, GnRH analogues, kisspeptin, steroidogenesis, hormonal cycle, fish gametogenesis, aquaporins, gamete quality evaluation and epigenetic markers. This Research Topic shall welcome original research articles, review articles, mini reviews and etc.