Stress Nutrition in Aquatic Animals: From Definition to Practice

ABSTRACT Aquaculture faces numerous challenges, with stress being one of the major issues that lead to growth loss, metabolic disorders, weakened immunity, redox imbalance, and organ damage in aquatic animals. Nutritional intervention is one of the effective strategies to address these problems. Traditional research has primarily focused on the impacts of a single stressor on specific aspects of particular aquatic animal species. However, in practical scenarios, aquatic animals are often simultaneously exposed to multiple, overlapping stressors. Thus, it becomes crucial to investigate the specific role of nutrients in anti‐stress and to consider their synergistic effects when used in combination. Nevertheless, some nutrients have overlapping functions or differences in the degree of treatment. Thus, it is necessary to synthesize the existing nutritional research on stress alleviation in order to provide more precise and economical nutritional strategies. This paper reviews the research progress in stress nutrition in aquatic animals, including the classification of stressors, stress response processes and their combined effects, as well as the development of nutritional strategies offering new perspectives for managing stress in aquaculture. It defines stress nutrition from the perspective of essential nutrients, conditional essential nutrients, and homeostasis regulation of gut microbiota, emphasizing the dynamic adjustment of nutritional requirements in response to various stressors. Additionally, it also provides an in‐depth discussion of the research progress, challenges, and future prospects in this field. Continued exploration in this field will reduce stress‐associated losses in aquaculture and promote the efficiency of food supply by this important agricultural sector.