Horizon scanning is a foresight methodology designed to uncover and assess emerging issues before they become full-blown emergencies. In the plant health context, it functions as the initial step in a surveillance pipeline, gathering signals from thousands of sources and distilling them into actionable intelligence for risk managers. The EU system, run by EFSA in collaboration with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES), produces monthly reports known as newsletters. As of 2024, this activity has generated 130 such reports, covering both pests already regulated under EU law and, crucially, unknown or unlisted species that no legislation yet anticipates.

The technological engine behind the monitoring phase is MedISys, the Medical Information System developed by the JRC. Originally built for public health surveillance, MedISys is a fully automatic, event-based system that in 2024 was scanning more than 3,200 scientific and media sources worldwide every day. Manually curated categories, keyed to the scientific and multilingual common names of individual pests, allow the platform to retrieve articles about specific organisms, while generic keywords such as pest, plant disease, crop and yield losses cast a wider net for the discovery of entirely new threats. Articles flagged by the machine are then reviewed and validated by a team of experts before being selected for the monthly newsletter, which is published in the EFSA Journal and presented to the Plant Health section of the EU Commission’s PAFF Committee.

The second stage of the pipeline is a rapid screening procedure called PeMoScoring, short for pest and monitoring scoring. Eligible pests must be capable of damaging plant species of economic relevance to the EU, must be able to enter the territory through at least one import commodity that is not banned or by natural spread from outside the EU, and must not be newly described species. PeMoScoring evaluates 15 criteria grouped into five items: host range, entry, establishment, spread and impact. Each criterion is posed as a question with predefined response options whose scores were calibrated against reference pests, ensuring consistency across assessments. The answers combine into a final net phi value ranging from minus one to plus one, with a threshold separating negative results, meaning insufficient evidence of risk, from positive results that signal a potential threat and can trigger further action by risk managers.

To evaluate how well this machinery has performed, the team compiled every article published in the newsletters between 2017 and 2024 into a database, recording the pest’s biological category, scientific name, regulatory status, article topic, source, PeMoScoring outcome and, where applicable, the country of detection and host plant. The dataset revealed that the 130 reports covered 1,153 pests, of which 836 were not listed in EU regulation or EPPO lists and 317 were regulated. Insects and mites accounted for the highest number of regulated species cited, while fungi and oomycetes stood out as the category in which unlisted species were more frequently reported than regulated ones.

The source analysis yielded instructive patterns. Although the majority of unique sources were media outlets, with 617 compared to 301 scientific sources, the bulk of the articles actually came from the scientific literature: 1,978 articles from journals versus 1,380 from media. For regulated pests, media coverage dominated in the insects and mites category, whereas viruses, viroids and phytoplasmas appeared more often in peer-reviewed publications. For unlisted pests, the scientific literature was generally the richer source, particularly for fungi and oomycetes and for viruses. Notably, a large share of articles came from sources consulted only once, suggesting that casting a wide net across many outlets, even shallowly, increases the volume of relevant intelligence without sacrificing quality.

Topic classification showed that new observations, encompassing first findings, interceptions, new host plants, new pests and new vectors, were by far the most common group, followed by management and then assessment, the latter two being associated predominantly with regulated pests. Among the subtopics, first findings were mainly reported in scientific publications, while new findings, defined as detections of a pest in a different region within the same country, were primarily reported in the media. For regulated insects and mites, the pattern was striking: 97 percent of articles reporting new findings originated from media sources. Of the 392 new pests reported during the exercise, only 27 were mentioned again in subsequent articles, and crops accounted for 67.5 percent of host plant citations, with forests, ornamentals and wild plants making up the remainder.

The PeMoScoring results demonstrate the system’s real filtering power. From 2017 to 2024, 233 pests were scored, with 119 receiving positive results and 114 negative ones. Twenty-seven of the positive pests were proposed for pest categorisation, EFSA’s more elaborate assessment of whether regulatory measures may be required, and 20 of those 27 categorisations returned a positive outcome, with three negative and four inconclusive. On average, it took about three years for a PeMo-positive case to undergo pest categorisation. The proportion of positive scores has declined since 2021, which the authors suggest may reflect improving protective measures, since diagnosis and control options feed into the scoring evaluation.

Perhaps the most vivid illustration of the system’s value is the case of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense tropical race 4, the soil-borne fungus behind Panama disease in bananas. TR4 scored positive in PeMoScoring as early as July 2017, when its known distribution was limited to eastern Asia and the Middle East, even though bananas are not widely cultivated in the EU. A pest categorisation followed in 2022, concluding that the pathogen met the criteria for consideration as a potential Union quarantine pest. Since then, TR4 has spread to Türkiye, Oceania and, significantly, Latin America, with detections in Colombia in 2019, Peru in 2021 and Venezuela in 2023. In 2024 the pathogen was added to the EPPO A2 list, and the International Plant Protection Convention issued new prevention guidelines covering e-commerce pathways.

Media signals have also proven decisive for other invaders. Reports of the invasive fire ant Solenopsis invicta in Sicily surfaced well before the formal scientific publication, underscoring the potential of integrating citizen science and social media into surveillance. The February 2022 newsletter, meanwhile, carried the first observation of the fungus Neofusicoccum mediterraneum in Italy, a new report of Citrus concave gum-associated virus in the United States, and evidence that barley serves as a host for Chinese wheat mosaic virus. None of these were listed in the EU Plant Health Regulation, yet the procedure triggered a request from the Swedish Board of Agriculture for tailored risk assessments, showing how scanning outputs translate directly into preparedness actions.

Looking forward, the authors argue that the vast dataset accumulated over seven years could support a shift from consequence-to-event tracking toward an event-to-consequence approach, and ultimately toward artificial-intelligence systems capable of pinpointing critical information automatically. A preliminary driver-based study of newsletters published between June 2021 and September 2022 confirmed that global trade is the main driver of pest emergence, and other research points to traits such as polyphagy, heat tolerance, high dispersal capacity and genetic diversity as markers of future risk. Workshops are now being organised to build a plant health horizon scanning community across institutions, and the newsletter data are available through an interactive EFSA dashboard. Limitations remain, including delays caused by constraints in data publication and web scraping, but the overall verdict is clear: seven years of systematic horizon scanning have measurably strengthened Europe’s capacity to anticipate, rather than merely react to, the next plant health threat.

Subject of Research: Horizon scanning methodology for early detection of emerging plant pest threats in the European Union

Article Title: Unravelling potential plant health threats for the European Union: application of horizon scanning methodology

Article References: Ribaya, M., López-Mercadal, J., Campese, C., Sarakatsani, E., & Tramontini, S. (2025). Unravelling potential plant health threats for the European Union: application of horizon scanning methodology. Web Ecology, 25(2), 189-200. https://doi.org/10.5194/we-25-189-2025

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.5194/we-25-189-2025

Keywords: horizon scanning, plant health, EFSA, invasive pests, PeMoScoring, MedISys, biosecurity, plant pathogens, risk management, Fusarium TR4, early warning systems, European Union

The research, led by Xuan Dong of the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences together with Weifeng Shi of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and a large international team, drew on an unusually rich collection of 403 samples gathered over six years, from 2019 through 2024. Sampling spanned a remarkable geographic range: the seas near the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands, the South Orkney Islands, and South Georgia Island in Western Antarctica, along with the Cosmonauts Sea in Eastern Antarctica. Specimens were collected with the assistance of the crews of the research icebreakers Xuelong and Xuelong 2 and scientific observers working with the Chinese krill fishery, an arrangement that allowed the team to reach remote waters across multiple seasons.

Technically, the study relied on metatranscriptomic sequencing, an approach that captures the total RNA present in a sample rather than targeting a single gene or organism. Because RNA viruses must replicate through RNA intermediates, sequencing the transcriptomes of host tissues and associated microbes simultaneously surfaces viral genomes that would be missed by DNA-based methods. The team screened the resulting data using RdRp-scan, a pipeline built around hidden Markov model profiles that detect the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, the hallmark enzyme conserved across RNA virus lineages. Candidates passing initial screening were then subjected to increasingly conservative validation criteria, including DIAMOND-based similarity searches, to distinguish genuine viral polymerases from cellular genes or sequencing artifacts. This two-tier strategy, combining a sensitive discovery scan with a stringent confirmation analysis, allowed the researchers to characterize both complete viral genomes and highly fragmented sequences that hint at even more diversity lurking in the data.

The viral inventory that emerged was dominated by positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses, with 37 representatives, a group that includes many of the most familiar virus families infecting animals and plants. Sixteen double-stranded RNA viruses and five negative-sense single-stranded RNA viruses rounded out the collection. Among the named discoveries were Lawrence virus and Vespucci virus, along with a member of the Picornaviridae, a family that includes poliovirus and foot-and-mouth disease virus among its terrestrial relatives. The sheer proportion of novel agents underscores how little is known about viral life in polar ecosystems, where cold, ice-covered waters and isolated food webs may have fostered long, independent evolutionary histories for their microbial inhabitants.

To understand how these viral communities are organized, the researchers applied alpha and beta diversity analyses, standard ecological tools for measuring within-sample richness and between-sample compositional differences. The alpha diversity comparisons, whether based on RdRp-scan results or the more stringent dataset, showed no statistically significant differences in viral richness or Shannon diversity across host species or sampling locations, with one-way ANOVA yielding p-values above 0.05 in every comparison. In other words, no single host or site carried a categorically richer virome than another. Beta diversity told a different story: the composition of viral communities differed significantly among host species, indicating that host identity, not geography, is the dominant force structuring which viruses live where. The authors note that the influence of geographic location on virome composition warrants further study, particularly given the wide and seasonally variable sampling range.

The most consequential finding, however, came from comparing viral sequences across the Antarctic food web. The team detected near-identical strains of Lawrence virus, sharing 99.35 percent identity in the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene, in both Antarctic krill and their predators. Vespucci virus strains found in krill and fish shared 97.70 to 99.08 percent RdRp identity with sequences from the same predators, and a picornavirus showed a similar pattern. The predators in question were the chinstrap penguin, Pygoscelis antarcticus, and the Antarctic fur seal, Arctocephalus gazella, two species that feed heavily on krill and fish in the Southern Ocean. Such high sequence identity between viruses found in prey and their consumers is suggestive of cross-species transmission moving up the food chain, although the authors are careful to frame this as a potential route rather than a proven one.

Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, sit at the center of this transmission story for good reason. The shrimp-like crustacean is among the most abundant animals on the planet by biomass and forms the dietary backbone for penguins, seals, whales, and countless fish species. Any virus capable of persisting in krill populations has, in principle, a ready-made vehicle for reaching a wide range of vertebrate hosts through predation. The near-identical viral sequences in krill, fish, penguins, and fur seals provide the first genomic evidence that this trophic pathway may carry RNA viruses between distantly related animals in the Southern Ocean, a dynamic that has been hypothesized for other ecosystems but rarely documented in polar waters.

Beyond its ecological implications, the study carries practical weight for biosecurity. Warming temperatures and expanding human activity, from tourism to fisheries to scientific operations, are increasing the movement of people, equipment, and potentially pathogens into and out of the Antarctic. At the same time, shifting sea ice and changing prey distributions may alter contact patterns among wildlife species, creating new opportunities for viral exchange. The authors position their dataset as an essential baseline for assessing these risks, arguing that understanding which viruses currently circulate in Antarctic aquatic animals is a prerequisite for detecting any future incursions or range expansions. The evolutionary adaptability of RNA viruses, whose high mutation rates allow rapid adjustment to new hosts and conditions, makes this baseline all the more urgent to establish.

The work also demonstrates how modern genomic surveillance can be extended to environments where traditional virology has struggled to gain a foothold. Cold-chain logistics, remote fieldwork, and the difficulty of culturing polar pathogens have long limited virus discovery in Antarctica, but metatranscriptomics sidesteps many of these barriers by reading viral genetic material directly from field samples. The detection of 160 distinct RNA-dependent RNA polymerase groups in the broader screening analysis, many of them recurring across multiple libraries, suggests that the 58 fully characterized viruses represent only a portion of the diversity present. As sequencing costs continue to fall and reference databases expand, similar surveys in other polar and deep-sea ecosystems are likely to reveal comparable hidden reservoirs.

For now, the study stands as a reminder that even the planet’s most isolated continent is not virologically empty. Its waters host a diverse and largely novel array of RNA viruses, shaped primarily by the hosts they infect and connected to top predators through the food they eat. Whether any of these agents pose risks to wildlife health, fisheries, or human activity remains an open question, but the answer will depend on the kind of systematic, multi-year surveillance this research exemplifies. With the Southern Ocean changing faster than almost any marine environment on Earth, cataloging its viral inhabitants before the ecosystem shifts further may prove to be one of the most time-sensitive tasks in polar science.

Subject of Research: Diversity and food-web transmission of RNA viruses in Antarctic aquatic animals

Article Title: Underexplored diversity and transmission of RNA viruses in Antarctic aquatic animals

Article References: Dong, X., Zhou, Q., Luo, J., Su, Q., Wang, X., Zhu, J., Fan, G., Zhang, J., Ying, Y., Zhao, Y., Liu, L., Xu, Q., Liu, S., Wang, X., Li, J., Li, C., Yan, Y., Meng, F., Li, X., … Shi, W. (2026). Underexplored diversity and transmission of RNA viruses in Antarctic aquatic animals. Microbiome. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-026-02544-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40168-026-02544-0

Keywords: Antarctica, RNA viruses, virome, metatranscriptomics, Antarctic krill, chinstrap penguin, Antarctic fur seal, viral transmission, virus discovery, Southern Ocean, biodiversity, biosecurity

The bamboo borer is a powderpost beetle in the family Bostrichidae, and it is widely regarded as one of the most destructive post-harvest pests of bamboo worldwide. Unlike pests that attack living plants in the field, D. minutus infests both seasoned and unseasoned bamboo after harvest, boring into culms and feeding on the starch-rich tissues inside. This concealed feeding habit reduces the structural integrity of the material and renders it unsuitable for commercial use, undermining storage life, utilization potential, and market value. Because the beetle spends most of its life cycle hidden inside the culm, early detection is notoriously difficult, and infestations often spread silently during storage and transportation. The consequences ripple through bamboo-based economies, particularly in tropical and subtropical developing countries where bamboo supports rural livelihoods, handicraft industries, construction, and paper production.

The biology of the species makes it especially sensitive to climate. D. minutus thrives under warm, humid conditions, with optimal development occurring between roughly 25 and 35 degrees Celsius, temperatures that accelerate its life cycle and allow multiple overlapping generations each year. Temperature and relative humidity strongly influence its population dynamics, which means that shifts in global climate patterns could profoundly reshape where the beetle can survive and reproduce. Rising temperatures, altered precipitation regimes, and changing seasonality are expected to affect insect physiology, phenology, and distribution across the board, and climate-sensitive species such as the bamboo borer are likely candidates for significant range shifts.

To quantify that risk, the researchers assembled occurrence records for the species from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. The initial dataset contained 483 records, of which 297 carried usable geographic coordinates. Rigorous cleaning followed: records lacking locality information, those with coordinate errors, and 17 points located in marine environments were removed, along with 172 duplicates sharing identical coordinates. Spatial thinning with a 5-kilometer distance threshold was then applied to reduce sampling bias and spatial autocorrelation arising from uneven survey effort. The final dataset comprised 88 georeferenced presence records spanning latitudes from 42.88 degrees south to 59.12 degrees north, covering the Afrotropical, Indomalayan, Palearctic, and Oceanian biogeographic realms.

Environmental predictors came from the WorldClim version 2.1 database at a resolution of 2.5 arc-minutes, roughly 5 kilometers. The team began with the 19 standard bioclimatic variables plus elevation, then screened for multicollinearity by calculating pairwise Pearson correlations at the species’ occurrence localities. Variables with correlation coefficients above 0.80 in absolute value were pruned, leaving six predictors: mean temperature of the warmest quarter, annual precipitation, precipitation of the warmest quarter, temperature seasonality, temperature annual range, and elevation. Elevation was retained because it indirectly shapes local temperature, humidity, and microclimatic conditions that govern insect survival, and it captures topographic heterogeneity that climate variables alone may miss.

The MaxEnt model itself was implemented in R using the maxnet package, with 10,000 background points sampled from the accessible study extent and complementary log-log output producing suitability scores between 0 and 1. Hinge, linear, and product features were permitted, appropriate for moderate sample sizes, and the regularization multiplier was tuned rather than left at its default to balance model complexity against predictive accuracy. Performance was assessed with five-fold cross-validation, and the results were striking: the model achieved a mean area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, or AUC, of 0.891, indicating excellent discriminatory ability. Omission rates at the 10th percentile training threshold closely matched observed rates on test data, further supporting the model’s calibration and reliability.

Under current climate conditions, the model predicts that only 5.36 percent of the global terrestrial area is climatically suitable for the bamboo borer, concentrated in South and Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, northern Australia, and coastal lowlands of East Asia. The global distribution of suitability was strongly right-skewed, with a median value of just 0.001, meaning that highly favorable habitat occupies a geographically restricted footprint. Only 4.46 percent of terrestrial grid cells exceeded a suitability score of 0.5, and a mere 2.22 percent exceeded 0.7. Boreal forests, temperate continental interiors, hyper-arid deserts, and high montane systems received near-zero scores, reflecting the beetle’s incompatibility with cold winters, extreme thermal seasonality, and moisture deficits.

The variable importance analysis revealed a nuanced ecological picture. Annual precipitation was the top contributor at 26.8 percent, with suitability peaking at roughly 800 to 1,000 millimeters of rainfall per year and declining beyond about 2,000 millimeters, suggesting the beetle is adapted to seasonally dry to sub-humid environments rather than persistently wet tropics. Elevation contributed 24.1 percent, with suitability highest below about 200 meters and declining steadily with altitude. Temperature seasonality and temperature annual range together contributed nearly 30 percent, indicating that climatic stability is critical for population persistence. Notably, mean temperature of the warmest quarter, although fourth in percent contribution, showed the highest permutation importance at 31.1 percent, with suitability peaking between 20 and 25 degrees Celsius, a result consistent with the thermophilic physiology of bostrichid beetles and other stored-product insects.

The future projections are where the study delivers its most consequential findings. Using the MIROC6 global climate model under four Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, from the low-emission SSP126 to the high-emission SSP585, the researchers projected habitat suitability for three future periods: 2041 to 2060, 2061 to 2080, and 2081 to 2100. Across all scenarios and periods, suitable area expanded to between 9.07 and 10.39 percent of global land area, a substantial increase over the current 5.36 percent. The single largest expansion occurred during 2041 to 2060 under SSP370, which produced 1,293,897 suitable cells, or 10.39 percent of terrestrial area. Interestingly, the low-emission SSP126 pathway maintained the most stable suitable area throughout the century, holding between 10.27 and 10.38 percent, while the higher-emission scenarios showed strong early-century gains followed by gradual late-century declines, with SSP585 falling to 9.07 percent by 2081 to 2100.

This pattern suggests that moderate warming may enhance suitability by relaxing climatic constraints in currently marginal regions, whereas more extreme warming could push some tropical areas beyond the beetle’s optimal temperature and moisture envelope. The spatial projections point to new risk zones in southern Europe, the Mediterranean basin, temperate East Asia, and the southern United States, regions where bamboo industries and trade networks could suddenly face a threat they have never contended with. The authors acknowledge limitations, including the absence of globally consistent bamboo distribution layers and land-use data, and the use of a 1970 to 2000 climate baseline that may not fully capture recent shifts. Even so, the message is clear: climate change is likely to facilitate the global spread of D. minutus throughout the twenty-first century, and the researchers argue that strengthened quarantine measures, early-warning systems, and long-term monitoring programs are urgently needed to protect bamboo resources and the economies that depend on them before the beetle arrives.

Subject of Research: Projected global habitat expansion of the bamboo borer Dinoderus minutus under CMIP6 climate change scenarios using MaxEnt species distribution modeling

Article Title: Climate driven habitat expansion of the bamboo borer under CMIP6 climate change scenarios using MaxEnt modeling

Article References: Climate driven habitat expansion of the bamboo borer under CMIP6 climate change scenarios using MaxEnt modeling. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44372-026-00845-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44372-026-00845-0

Keywords: bamboo borer, Dinoderus minutus, MaxEnt, CMIP6, climate change, habitat suitability, species distribution modeling, invasive pests, SSP scenarios, post-harvest pest, biosecurity, WorldClim

Researchers led by Oluwawemimo Adebowale of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, surveyed 48 integrated farms in Lagos and Ogun states between May and September 2023, using structured interviews with farmers alongside on-site assessments of biosecurity. The results, published in BMC Agriculture, offer the first baseline data on antimicrobial use in this emerging Nigerian farming system, and they reveal a landscape of heavy antibiotic reliance, patchy disease prevention, and knowledge gaps that could accelerate the global crisis of antimicrobial resistance.

The scale of drug use on these farms is striking. Farmers reported deploying at least ten different classes of antibiotics, including fluoroquinolones, tetracyclines, macrolides, aminoglycosides, penicillins, sulphonamides, lincosamides, cephalosporins, nitrofurans, and polymyxins. In poultry, the most commonly used drugs were enrofloxacin, reported by 89.4 percent of farmers, oxytetracycline at 80.9 percent, doxycycline and tylosin at 78.7 percent, and colistin at 63.8 percent. For fish, oxytetracycline and enrofloxacin dominated. Many of these compounds fall into the World Health Organization’s highest priority critically important antimicrobials for human medicine, meaning they are drugs on which doctors depend when other treatments fail. Colistin, a polymyxin widely used on the surveyed farms, is considered a last-resort antibiotic in human medicine, reserved for infections that no other drug can touch.

The WHO classifies antibiotics into three stewardship tiers known as AWaRE: Access, for first-line drugs with low resistance risk; Watch, for broader-spectrum drugs that require careful monitoring; and Reserve, for last-line treatments. The study found that farmers were using drugs from all three groups, including Watch and Reserve categories, often without veterinary oversight. Nearly 96 percent of farmers purchased antimicrobials from veterinary pharmacies, and 79.2 percent used them to prevent disease rather than to treat diagnosed infections, a practice that blankets healthy animals in drugs and creates intense selection pressure for resistant microbes.

The biology of the integrated system amplifies the risk. When poultry droppings containing antibiotic residues and resistant bacteria wash into fish ponds, the aquatic environment becomes a mixing vessel where resistance genes can move between bacterial species. A previous Nigerian study cited by the researchers confirmed that multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria from chicken excreta were disseminating into pond environments and fish. Because bacteria readily exchange resistance genes through horizontal gene transfer, a pond fertilized with medicated poultry waste is essentially an evolutionary accelerator. Fish raised in that water, and inadequately cooked before consumption, can carry resistant pathogens to the dinner table.

Disease pressure on these farms helps explain the drug dependence. Chronic respiratory disease was the most commonly reported chicken ailment, affecting 68.8 percent of farms in the previous year, followed by infectious coryza and bacterial gastroenteritis from salmonellosis and colibacillosis. Among fish, fin rot was the leading complaint. Yet the study found that preventive measures were applied unevenly: nearly all farmers vaccinated and dewormed their chickens, but fewer than one in ten reported routine vaccination of fish, leaving aquaculture largely unprotected and dependent on reactive drug use when outbreaks struck.

Biosecurity, the frontline defense that reduces the need for antibiotics in the first place, was found wanting. Only 54.1 percent of farms had established biosecurity protocols at the time of the visit, and field assessors judged just 37.5 percent of farmers as having good biosecurity measures in practice. The overall biosecurity score averaged 64.7 percent, with more than half of participants rated as poor. Two-thirds of farms reported migratory wild birds on the premises, a known vector for disease introduction, while fewer than a third had designated biosecurity work zones separating clean and dirty operations. In a system where poultry and fish share water, waste, and space, such lapses leave multiple doors open for pathogens.

Perhaps the most encouraging finding is that knowledge and attitude appear to be levers for change. Farmers’ knowledge of antimicrobial use correlated positively with their actual practices, as did their attitudes, and the two were strongly linked to each other. Farmers who understood the risks tended to think differently about drugs, and farmers who thought differently tended to use them more responsibly. More than 94 percent of respondents said they were willing to attend training on appropriate antimicrobial use, with workshops, seminars, and veterinary extension officers identified as the preferred channels. The farmers themselves identified the main drivers of indiscriminate drug use as lack of awareness and training, quackery, inadequate access to veterinary services, weak antibiotic policy enforcement, and poor biosecurity.

The study’s authors are careful to note its limits. The sample of 48 farms is small, reflecting the fact that integrated fish-chicken farming is still an emerging system in Nigeria, and the findings may not generalize to the entire country. The survey also relied on self-reported data and did not directly test for resistant bacteria on the farms, which the researchers flag as a priority for future work using microbiological and genomic methods. Still, the correlations they documented, however modest in magnitude, point to a clear intervention strategy: educate farmers, strengthen biosecurity, and the demand for antibiotics should fall.

The stakes extend well beyond Nigerian farm gates. At the 2024 United Nations General Assembly high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance, world leaders committed to reducing human deaths from drug-resistant infections by 10 percent by 2030, a goal that depends heavily on curbing antibiotic overuse in animal agriculture. Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Livestock Development, working with the Food and Agriculture Organization, has already developed national biosecurity guidelines for poultry and aquaculture farmers, and Lagos and Ogun states have been beneficiaries of related training, which may partly explain the relatively positive knowledge scores in this study. But the researchers warn that without policy changes and sustained antimicrobial stewardship programs, meeting the WHO target that Access-group antibiotics account for the majority of national consumption will be difficult, especially in Africa. Integrated farms like those surveyed here represent a genuine opportunity for sustainable food production, the study concludes, but only if the invisible plumbing of resistance that connects chicken waste, pond water, and the human food chain is acknowledged and managed before it becomes a public health emergency.

Subject of Research: Antimicrobial use and biosecurity in integrated commercial fish-chicken farming in Southwest Nigeria

Article Title: Cross-sectional study of antimicrobial use on integrated commercial fish-chicken farming in Southwest Nigeria: the link with on-farm biosecurity, farmers’ knowledge, and attitudes

Article References: Adebowale, O., Oyawole, O., Sanni, I., Odunfa, O., Oladejo, O. O., Folorunsho, E. O., Ajibola, A. B., & Nelson, G. U. (2025). Cross-sectional study of antimicrobial use on integrated commercial fish-chicken farming in Southwest Nigeria: the link with on-farm biosecurity, farmers’ knowledge, and attitudes. BMC Agriculture, 1(1), Article 10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s44399-025-00012-y

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s44399-025-00012-y

Keywords: antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial use, integrated fish-chicken farming, biosecurity, aquaculture, poultry, Nigeria, WHO AWaRE classification, colistin, antimicrobial stewardship, One Health, food safety

At the heart of the discipline sit synthetic genetic circuits, which the authors describe as the basic building blocks of the entire enterprise. These circuits control the production, turnover or depletion of specific DNA, RNA or protein molecules, giving researchers programmable control over gene expression and cellular behavior. The repertoire includes logic gates that mirror digital electronics, with BUFFER, NOT, AND, OR, XOR, NAND, NOR and XNOR configurations each activating or repressing output genes under distinct input conditions. Oscillators generate rhythmic fluctuations in protein concentrations, echoing natural circadian clocks and cell cycle regulators, while toggle switches act as biological memory, holding gene expression stably on or off much like flip-flop circuits in electronics. The landmark repressilator built by Elowitz and Leibler in Escherichia coli, a ring of three repressor proteins that suppress one another in sequence, produced green fluorescent protein oscillations with a period of roughly 150 minutes, about three times longer than the cell division cycle, demonstrating that entirely artificial networks could function robustly inside living bacteria.

The clinical implications of these circuits are already substantial. Genetic switches integrated into human cells can detect internal disease signals and respond with closed-loop logic, or react to external molecular cues in an open-loop configuration. When such circuits are built into next-generation chimeric antigen receptor T cells, they allow precise control over the timing and intensity of immune responses, improving both safety and effectiveness. A study by Daniels and colleagues designed more than 1,200 receptors combining twelve different signaling motifs and, using machine learning, identified synthetic motifs absent from natural receptors that created new T cell phenotypes with enhanced antitumor efficacy. In parallel, Li and colleagues developed synthetic zinc finger transcription factors, called synZiFTRs, that target an artificial 18-base-pair promoter not found in the human genome. Their activity could be controlled with three FDA-approved drugs: the antiviral grazoprevir induced anti-HER2 CAR expression in T cells, while tamoxifen triggered production of super high-affinity IL-2, producing drug-controllable antitumor effects in mouse models of NALM6 leukemia.

Synthetic chromosomes represent an even bolder frontier. Jason Chin’s team synthesized the entire E. coli genome, roughly four times larger than any previously synthesized genome, and compressed its genetic code from 64 to 61 codons by recoding 18,214 codon instances, using the REXER method to progressively replace the native genome with the synthetic version across eight parallel strains that were then combined by conjugation. In eukaryotes, the Sc2.0 Synthetic Yeast Genome Project, led by Jef Boeke of Johns Hopkins University, aims to build a designer genome for Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a organism with roughly 6,000 genes. Its signature SCRaMbLE system embeds more than 5,000 loxP recombination sites that can be rapidly activated to shuffle genetic content, generating millions of cell variants from which strains with improved industrial traits can be selected. After ten years of intensive work, an international collaboration spanning the UK, USA, China, Singapore, France and Australia completed synthetic chromosome XI, a 660,000-base-pair sequence that replaced a natural yeast chromosome while preserving normal cellular fitness through rigorous error correction.

Metabolic engineering, a discipline that emerged in the 1990s, is delivering some of the field’s most tangible products. Jay Keasling’s team engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae to produce artemisinic acid, the precursor to the antimalarial drug artemisinin, by inserting and optimizing genes from multiple organisms including the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, creating a sustainable fermentation route that sidesteps the variability of plant extraction. Lee and colleagues achieved something once thought impossible: engineered E. coli producing 1,4-butanediol, an industrial chemical made in more than 2.5 million tons annually that no living organism produces naturally, at a yield of 18 grams per liter from renewable sugars including glucose, xylose and sucrose. On the energy front, Nielsen and colleagues developed three microbial platforms, based on Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Zymomonas mobilis and E. coli, capable of fermenting lignocellulose sugars into bioethanol, though the authors note that competitive production will require optimization across every stage of the process. Dynamic metabolic control has also matured: by rewiring the transcriptional regulator FapR to balance malonyl-CoA supply and consumption in E. coli, researchers achieved a 15.7-fold improvement in fatty acid production.

The tools that make all of this possible have themselves undergone a quiet revolution. Standardized cloning remains foundational, with plasmids carrying replication origins, selection markers and promoters serving as the workhorses of gene transfer, and modular systems such as SureVector accelerating vector assembly. BioBrick standard parts, stored in the Standard Biological Parts Registry and central to the international iGEM competition, embody the field’s commitment to abstraction and interchangeability. Gibson assembly allows multiple DNA fragments with homologous overlapping ends to be joined seamlessly in an hour or less without restriction enzymes, while Golden Gate assembly and its extensions, including MoClo and Golden Braid, use type IIS enzymes to combine many fragments in a single tube. De novo DNA synthesis now delivers designed sequences within days or weeks, though cost and accuracy remain limiting factors. Perhaps most conceptually important is the chassis: researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute, starting from Mycoplasma genitalium, progressively defined a minimal cell, and by 2016 produced a organism with just 473 genes across 531 kilobase pairs, a simplified biological platform that minimizes interference with engineered circuits.

Beyond cancer, the review documents synthetic biology’s reach into diagnostics, tissue engineering and drug delivery. Engineered E. coli that produce LacZ upon contacting tumor cells can detect tumors smaller than one centimeter through a simple urine luminescence test, while Salmonella enterica colonizing tumor tissue can convert a prodrug into 5-fluorouracil that eradicates cancer cells. In tissue engineering, synthetic circuits built on Tet-on and Tet-off systems allow temporally controlled expression of genes such as Runx2 and Sox9, guiding bone and cartilage formation in implanted scaffolds, and biomaterial-encased gene switches have sustained reporter expression for more than 300 days in some systems. Bottom-up synthetic cells are emerging as drug carriers: Chen and colleagues built synthetic beta cells from multi-compartment vesicles containing glucose oxidase, catalase and insulin-loaded liposomes that released insulin in response to glucose and normalized blood sugar in type 1 diabetic mice, while other synthetic cells producing Pseudomonas exotoxin A killed cancer cells more effectively than purified toxin alone.

Biosensors and anti-infective therapies round out the medical portfolio. The ROSALIND platform developed by Collins and colleagues uses cell-free, freeze-dried reactions with allosteric transcription factors to detect 16 different water contaminants, producing visible RNA-based signals that can be shipped at ambient temperature and deployed in field tests on municipal water. Against antibiotic resistance, engineered phages have shown striking results: a T7 phage producing the biofilm-degrading enzyme dispersin B eliminated 99.997 percent of bacteria within a biofilm, and a lytic M13 phage suppressing bacterial DNA damage responses significantly enhanced the killing of resistant cells by existing antibiotics. Phage display technology, pioneered by George Smith and applied to antibodies by Gregory Winter, underlies drugs such as adalimumab for rheumatoid arthritis, and AI tools like AlphaFold are now accelerating therapeutic antibody design by modeling binding sites with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

Agriculture and industry complete the picture, alongside sobering warnings. Pivot Bio’s engineered nitrogen-fixing bacteria increased corn yields by 5.8 bushels per acre while cutting chemical fertilizer use by 25 pounds per acre, without the greenhouse gas emissions and runoff of conventional fertilizers. CRISPR/Cas9 editing has boosted GABA content in tomatoes seven- to fifteen-fold, raised lycopene levels 5.1-fold through multiplex editing, and enabled de novo domestication of allotetraploid wild rice by Jiayang Li’s team. Even de-extinction has entered the agenda, with George Church’s project aiming to modify around 45 genes in the Asian elephant genome to create a cold-tolerant, mammoth-like hybrid. Yet the authors close with a caution: the same tools that promise sustainable fuels and personalized medicines could, through accident or intent, produce harmful biological agents, and they argue that strong biosafety and biosecurity policies at national and global levels are a critical precondition for safely delivering synthetic biology’s benefits to society. By 2030, they predict, most people will use a product built by this technology, whether they know it or not.

Subject of Research: Applications of synthetic biology in medicine, agriculture and industry

Article Title: Synthetic biology and application areas

Article References: Karataş, P., & Ayaz, F. (2025). Synthetic biology and application areas. Discover Biotechnology, 2(1), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44340-025-00010-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44340-025-00010-5

Keywords: synthetic biology, genetic circuits, CAR-T cell therapy, synthetic chromosomes, metabolic engineering, CRISPR, biosensors, drug delivery, biofuels, Sc2.0 yeast genome, repressilator, biosecurity

The research, led by Zhixin Zhang of the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology and Xuan Liu of the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with an international team spanning Japan, Hungary, Italy, Finland, Canada and the United States, set out to answer a deceptively simple question. Climate change is redistributing life on Earth, and ecologists have invested heavily in forecasting how warming temperatures will shift the ranges of non-native species on land and in surface waters. But one pathway has been almost entirely overlooked: when the sea floods coastal land, that newly inundated ground becomes potential marine habitat, and the species best positioned to occupy it are the non-native animals already living in the neighboring ecoregion.

To quantify that risk, the team combined several layers of geospatial and ecological data. They mapped the coastal areas projected to fall below future sea levels under the SSP2-4.5 emissions scenario, a moderate pathway of future warming, using high-resolution coastal elevation data refined through machine-learning approaches such as CoastalDEM, which corrects the canopy and building errors that plague standard elevation models. They then modeled the climatic and environmental niches of 122 established non-native marine animals, drawing occurrence records from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the Ocean Biodiversity Information System, the Atlas of Living Australia, the National Biodiversity Network Atlas and published literature. Marine environmental predictors came from Bio-ORACLE version 3.0, a data suite aligned with the latest CMIP6 Earth system models, and the analyses were executed at scale on Google Earth Engine.

The modeling framework was deliberately rigorous. The researchers used ensemble species distribution modeling, combining multiple algorithms and correcting for the sampling biases that notoriously distort marine occurrence data, since records cluster around ports, research stations and popular diving sites. Spatially structured cross-validation was applied to avoid overfitting, and threshold-selection methods were used to convert continuous habitat-suitability scores into binary predictions of where each species could plausibly establish. The team then aggregated these predictions across all 122 species and overlaid them onto the inundation maps, producing a global picture of where flooded land would be simultaneously reachable and environmentally congenial to invaders waiting just offshore.

The headline result is striking in its scale. By the middle and the end of this century, approximately 290,000 to 470,000 square kilometers of newly inundated coastal land, an area larger than many European countries, is projected to be environmentally suitable for the 122 non-native marine animals already established in adjacent marine ecoregions. In other words, over two-thirds of the land the sea reclaims will, on paper, be colonizable by invaders. The geography of this risk is not uniform. The study identifies the estuaries of mid-latitude regions as particular hotspots, a pattern that reflects both where inundation will be extensive and where the environmental conditions of flooded land, including salinity regimes and temperature ranges, will match the tolerances of established non-native species.

Estuaries have long been recognized as the most heavily invaded of marine environments. Historical work on systems such as San Francisco Bay documented an accelerating invasion rate decades ago, and the reasons are structural: estuaries concentrate shipping, aquaculture and human population, they are naturally disturbed and productive, and their brackish waters filter out some native competitors while tolerating a broad range of colonists. The new study effectively extends this logic into the future. As sea-level rise pushes saline water up rivers and over coastal plains, it will convert farmland, wetlands and urban periphery into a mosaic of shallow marine and estuarine habitat, and the species that dominate nearby ports and bays will have first access to it.

History offers sobering precedents for what happens when the sea suddenly floods land. During the wartime inundation of Walcheren island in the Netherlands between 1944 and 1945, deliberately flooded polders were rapidly colonized by marine organisms, an episode documented in contemporary natural-history records. More recent studies of managed coastal realignment projects, in which seawalls are deliberately breached to restore saltmarsh, show that newly flooded habitats are colonized quickly by benthic macrofauna, and that the identity of the earliest arrivals can shape the community for years to come. Ecologists call these priority effects: the species that gets there first can lock in advantages that later arrivals struggle to overcome. If non-native crabs, ascidians, mollusks or worms reach flooded land before native species do, the resulting communities may remain invasion-dominated indefinitely.

The wider stakes are considerable. Biological invasions are already among the leading drivers of biodiversity loss worldwide, and their economic costs, estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually, are rising. Invasions also interact with public health, with research showing that invasive species can facilitate the emergence of zoonotic diseases. Climate change amplifies these pressures by shifting species ranges, opening Arctic shipping routes, and, as this study demonstrates, physically constructing new habitat at the land-sea boundary. Yet most invasion risk assessments and most national biosecurity frameworks do not currently treat sea-level-driven inundation as an invasion pathway at all. The authors argue that this blind spot needs to be closed, and that sea-level rise scenarios should be built into invasion risk predictions as a matter of standard practice.

There are also practical implications for how coastal adaptation is planned. Around the world, governments are weighing managed retreat, wetland restoration and realignment schemes as defenses against flooding, and these interventions will determine which lands are allowed to flood and how. The study suggests that the timing and design of such projects matter ecologically, not just hydrologically. Rapid colonization by natives, or management actions that suppress invaders during the vulnerable early window after inundation, could tip newly created habitats toward desirable ecological trajectories. Conversely, leaving flooded land unmanaged and connected to heavily invaded port waters could produce exactly the priority-effect lock-in that favors invaders. Early-warning systems, targeted monitoring of inundation zones, and proactive management strategies will be critical as coastal lands continue to be reclaimed by the ocean.

The researchers have made their occurrence records, habitat-suitability predictions and analysis scripts openly available through the South China Sea Ocean Data Center, allowing other teams to scrutinize and extend the work. Like all projections, the estimates carry uncertainties, from the trajectory of future emissions to the ecological details of how individual species respond to newly flooded terrain. But the central message is difficult to escape: the same rising water that threatens homes, infrastructure and farmland is also quietly redrawing the map of biological invasion. As the authors conclude, the world’s coastlines are becoming a new invasion front, and recognizing that front now, before the water arrives, may be the last affordable chance to manage what comes ashore with it.

Subject of Research: Projected colonization of sea-level-rise inundated coastal lands by established non-native marine animals

Article Title: Global sea-level rise will create a new biological invasion front

Article References: Zhang, Z., Yan, Z., García Molinos, J., Yu, G., Bede-Fazekas, Á., Carlton, J. T., Kass, J. M., Kulp, S. A., MacIsaac, H. J., Mammola, S., Ding, L., Du, Y., Jin, L., Li, X., Liao, W., Xin, Y., Lin, Q., & Liu, X. (2026). Global sea-level rise will create a new biological invasion front. Nature Ecology & Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03181-4

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1038/s41559-026-03181-4

Keywords: sea-level rise, biological invasions, marine invasive species, climate change, estuaries, species distribution modeling, coastal ecosystems, biodiversity, inundation, biosecurity, Nature Ecology & Evolution, priority effects

The technology addresses a persistent and underappreciated problem in livestock production. Rice husk, an abundant by-product of rice milling, is widely used as poultry bedding because it is cheap, lightweight, and absorbs moisture well. But during storage and use, bedding accumulates organic matter, fecal residues, and moisture that support microbial growth. Contaminated bedding can act as a long-term environmental reservoir for foodborne pathogens, facilitating transmission between production cycles and throughout the poultry supply chain. Conventional sanitation relies on chemical disinfectants such as quaternary ammonium compounds, aldehyde-based treatments, and oxidizing agents, yet these often penetrate bulk biomass poorly, work unevenly in porous substrates, and lose effectiveness under high organic loading, while raising concerns about residues, worker exposure, and environmental impact.

The new system, described in the journal Cleaner Engineering and Technology, is a trailer-mounted, mobile processing platform designed for continuous on-site operation. Its core components include an insulated sanitization chamber, a screw-assisted biomass transport mechanism that lifts and cascades rice husk particles through the treatment zone, an LPG-fueled gas burner generating hot air at 350 to 400 degrees Celsius, a hot-air mixing chamber, forced-air and recirculation blowers, and a cyclone dust separation unit. The screw-assisted cascading design is central to the system’s performance: by continuously lifting and redistributing particles, it repeatedly exposes fresh surfaces to the heated airflow, minimizing localized cold spots and thermal dead zones within the porous biomass bed.

A key engineering innovation is the airflow recirculation architecture. Rather than exhausting heated air after a single pass, the system captures hot air exiting the chamber, passes it through cyclone separators to remove suspended dust, and redirects it back into the heating circuit. This recirculation loop achieved an efficiency of approximately 86.7 percent, substantially improving thermal retention, stabilizing chamber temperature under transient loading, and reducing fuel consumption. Under steady-state conditions, the sanitization chamber held temperatures of roughly 115 to 125 degrees Celsius while rice husk exited at 95 to 100 degrees Celsius, with chamber temperature variation held to about plus or minus 2.1 degrees Celsius.

Residence time proved to be a critical operating variable. By tuning screw rotational frequency between 50 and 60 hertz, the researchers achieved residence times of 15 to 17 minutes, which they identified as the optimal window balancing microbial inactivation against throughput. At these settings the system processed 2.0 to 2.5 tonnes of rice husk per hour with thermal utilization efficiency peaking near 87.6 percent. Shorter residence times below 10 minutes risked ineffective sanitization, while longer exposures reduced productivity without meaningful gains. Statistical analysis confirmed that both temperature and residence time significantly influenced microbial reduction, with their interaction significant at p less than 0.01.

The microbiological validation was unusually rigorous for an industrial study. Throughout three years of routine monitoring, approximately 67 samples per month were collected from production lots of about 15 tonnes each, and formal annual validations compared 50 samples before treatment with 50 after. All analyses were performed at an ISO/IEC 17025-accredited laboratory, using selective enrichment, culture on Xylose Lysine Deoxycholate agar, and confirmatory identification by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. Under optimized conditions, contamination frequency fell from 16 percent to 4 percent, an estimated 75 percent reduction in positive detections. In controlled laboratory experiments, log reductions of total bacterial count reached 6.2 to 6.4 log CFU per gram at 120 to 125 degrees Celsius, corresponding to inactivation efficiencies above 99.999 percent, and Salmonella was not detected under any tested condition.

Perhaps the most instructive finding concerned moisture. Feedstock water content emerged as a dominant constraint on performance, contributing an estimated 18.6 percent of the relative influence on lethality. At moisture levels of 8 to 11 percent, the system achieved log reductions of about 6.3, but at 18 to 20 percent moisture the reduction fell to roughly 2.7 log, a level the authors classified as ineffective. The explanation is thermodynamic: water evaporation consumes latent heat, diverting thermal energy away from microbial destruction and buffering the biomass temperature. Field validation during rainy conditions confirmed the pattern, with positive detections rising to 9 percent at high moisture and 14 percent when high moisture was combined with shortened residence time. The researchers argue that industrial thermal sanitization must therefore be governed by integrated heat-and-moisture frameworks rather than temperature-only criteria, and they recommend real-time moisture sensing and adaptive residence-time control as future upgrades.

The economics are compelling. Total treatment cost was estimated at 0.0083 US dollars per kilogram of rice husk, compared with 0.014 to 0.021 dollars for conventional centralized chemical sterilization, an operating cost reduction of roughly 40 to 60 percent and a benefit-cost ratio of 4.6. LPG consumption averaged 8.3 kilograms per tonne of treated biomass, translating to a fuel cost of about 0.0052 dollars per kilogram. The savings arose from multiple vectors: complete elimination of disinfectant procurement, which alone accounted for 38.4 percent of total savings; removal of dedicated chemical storage warehouses; simplified single-stage logistics replacing multi-stage transport to centralized facilities; and reduced transportation emissions from on-site processing. Over three years, cumulative savings exceeded 0.30 million US dollars, averaging about 100,000 dollars annually.

From a sustainability standpoint, the system embodies cleaner production and circular economy principles. By using thermal energy as the sole sanitizing agent, it removes chemical residues from bedding that might otherwise accumulate in soils when spent litter is applied as fertilizer, and it eliminates occupational exposure to formaldehyde and related compounds. The life-cycle analysis, conducted through a life-cycle thinking approach rather than a formal ISO 14040/14044 assessment, attributed 34.8 percent of sustainability benefits to chemical elimination, 26.5 percent to biomass reuse and valorization, and 11.6 percent to avoided transportation. The technology effectively upcycles a low-value agricultural residue into a standardized sanitary product, closing a resource loop that links rice milling, poultry farming, and eventual nutrient recycling through spent bedding.

The authors are careful to note limitations. The microbiological outcomes reflect the tested operating conditions and should not be read as evidence of complete pathogen elimination under all field scenarios, and the sustainability percentages are relative indicators rather than quantified greenhouse gas reductions. Future work will pursue a full cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment, quantitative microbial inactivation modeling using D-value and z-value kinetics, computational fluid dynamics optimization of the reactor, and predictive process control. Still, the demonstrated combination of scale, reliability, and economics marks a significant step. A system that processes nearly 8,000 tonnes of abrasive, silica-rich biomass over three years with greater than 95 percent availability shows that continuous thermal sanitization has moved beyond the pilot stage, offering poultry producers a practical blueprint for biosecurity that is simultaneously cleaner, cheaper, and more circular than the chemical status quo.

Subject of Research: Industrial-scale continuous thermal sanitization of rice husk bedding for chemical-free poultry biosecurity

Article Title: Industrial-scale continuous thermal sanitization of rice husk bedding for cleaner poultry production: Resource valorization, biosecurity improvement, and sustainability assessment

Article References: Sangpradit, K., Thoetrattanakiat, S., Sookyoo, W., Intarasuk, A., & Samseemoung, G. (2026). Industrial-scale continuous thermal sanitization of rice husk bedding for cleaner poultry production: Resource valorization, biosecurity improvement, and sustainability assessment. Cleaner Engineering and Technology, 34, Article 101304. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clet.2026.101304

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1016/j.clet.2026.101304

Keywords: rice husk, poultry bedding, thermal sanitization, biosecurity, cleaner production, circular economy, pathogen inactivation, agricultural waste valorization, hot-air heating, Salmonella, LPG energy efficiency, sustainable livestock production

Antimicrobial resistance, commonly abbreviated as AMR, occurs when bacteria, viruses or other microorganisms evolve the ability to withstand treatments such as antibiotics that would normally kill them or stop their growth. In aquaculture, the farming of fish, crustaceans, molluscs and other aquatic organisms, the emergence of resistant pathogens is a particular concern because intensive production systems can create conditions in which disease spreads rapidly and antimicrobials are used to control outbreaks. When resistant organisms develop in aquatic environments, they can move through water, food chains and human contact, complicating treatment of infections in animals and people alike. Responsible antimicrobial use, coupled with strong biosecurity measures that prevent disease from entering or spreading within farms, is therefore regarded internationally as a cornerstone of sustainable aquatic food production.

Mississippi State University brings a long institutional history to this role. As a land-grant university with leading expertise in fisheries and aquaculture, veterinary medicine and international food security, it has worked with FAO on antimicrobial use and antimicrobial resistance, aquaculture biosecurity and aquatic animal health. The renewal of the reference centre designation signals that the organization’s reviewers judged the university’s contributions during the first designation period to have met the standards expected of a centre that provides authoritative scientific advice to FAO and its member nations. The agreement positions the university to continue supplying the technical competencies needed to strengthen capacity development efforts worldwide.

University President Mark E. Keenum said he looks forward to the institution continuing this important work under the renewed agreement. According to Keenum, the renewal means the university will continue to provide the scientific expertise and technical competencies needed to strengthen capacity development efforts that support FAO’s work in promoting the responsible use of antimicrobials in aquaculture and reducing the risks associated with antimicrobial resistance. He added that Mississippi State will also continue to support FAO’s efforts to advance responsible aquaculture practices and strengthen aquaculture biosecurity worldwide, framing the partnership as an extension of the university’s land-grant mission into the international arena.

The renewal was marked in person at FAO headquarters in Rome, where Mississippi State Provost and Executive Vice President David Shaw and other university leaders met with officials on September 22 as part of a broader agri-food systems conference. The discussions focused on building more resilient food systems, a theme that has grown in urgency as aquatic foods supply an increasing share of animal protein for a growing global population while facing mounting pressures from disease, environmental change and intensifying production. The Rome meeting provided an opportunity to align the centre’s next five-year work programme with FAO’s strategic priorities on antimicrobial resistance and biosecure aquaculture.

Shaw emphasized the interconnected nature of the challenges the centre addresses. He noted that issues related to food security, animal health, environmental stewardship and human well-being are often deeply intertwined, even when institutions attempt to address them separately, and that aquatic food systems provide a particularly compelling example of those connections. In his view, the university’s experience in aquaculture, veterinary medicine and international food-security initiatives has repeatedly reinforced why collaborative, multidisciplinary approaches are essential. Addressing antimicrobial resistance, he said, requires scientists, veterinarians, producers, policymakers, regulators, environmental specialists and public health experts to work together across disciplines and sectors rather than in isolation.

Shaw also argued that universities carry a responsibility that goes beyond generating knowledge. As a land-grant institution, Mississippi State believes strongly that universities must connect expertise across disciplines and translate that knowledge into practical solutions for producers and communities. He described antimicrobial resistance as a reminder that complex challenges demand integrated approaches, and he identified a central lesson that the partnership with FAO highlights: the most effective response to disease is often prevention. That principle, in which biosecurity and good husbandry reduce the need for antimicrobial treatment in the first place, sits at the heart of the reference centre’s technical philosophy.

Stephen Reichley, who heads the FAO Reference Centre and serves as associate director of the Global Center for Aquatic Health and Food Security, said the redesignation recognizes the university’s continuing contributions at the intersection of aquatic animal health, antimicrobial stewardship, aquaculture biosecurity, food security and One Health. The One Health framework, which treats human, animal and environmental health as inseparable, has become the dominant lens through which international agencies approach antimicrobial resistance, since resistant organisms and the genes that confer resistance can circulate among people, livestock, wildlife, water and soil. Reichley noted that the work also reinforces the university’s role in supporting both the United States aquaculture sector and international efforts to build sustainable, biosecure aquatic food systems.

Reichley described the five-year redesignation as a reflection of FAO’s continued confidence in Mississippi State and, more importantly, as another opportunity to put the university’s expertise to work on challenges that affect producers and food systems around the world. By connecting research, diagnostics, education and extension, he said, the centre can help prevent aquatic animal disease, promote responsible antimicrobial use and strengthen aquaculture biosecurity from Mississippi to the global level. That combination of laboratory science, field diagnostics and outreach is characteristic of the land-grant model, in which discoveries move from research settings into the hands of farmers, veterinarians and regulators who can apply them.

The measurable record of the first designation period underlines the scale of that contribution. Between 2022 and the renewal, Mississippi State reported 47 scientific papers on antimicrobial resistance and aquatic biosecurity to FAO, along with 139 presentations and more than 30 research projects that advanced understanding of AMR in aquatic environments and improved aquaculture biosecurity practices. Those outputs fed directly into FAO’s mission of providing authoritative advice to its member nations, informing guidance on how farms can reduce disease risk through stocking density management, water quality control, vaccination, diagnostic surveillance and other preventive measures that limit the need for antimicrobials. With the agreement now extended through October 2031, the centre is positioned to build on that foundation at a moment when demand for aquatic protein is rising and the global fight against antimicrobial resistance has never been more consequential. Ongoing workshops and events connected to the centre’s work are listed through the Global Center for Aquatic Health and Food Security, offering producers, researchers and policymakers continuing avenues to engage with the science of biosecure, responsible aquaculture.

Subject of Research: Renewal of an FAO reference centre designation for research on antimicrobial resistance and biosecurity in aquaculture

Article Title: FAO renews university's designation as Reference Centre on Antimicrobial Resistance and Aquaculture Biosecurity

Article References: FAO renews university's designation as Reference Centre on Antimicrobial Resistance and Aquaculture Biosecurity. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: antimicrobial resistance, aquaculture, biosecurity, FAO, Mississippi State University, aquatic animal health, One Health, food security, antimicrobial stewardship, global center for aquatic health and food security, sustainable aquaculture, fish health