Come rain or come shine: environmental effects on the infective stages of Sparicotyle chrysophrii, a key pathogen in Mediterranean aquaculture

Larval development and hatching of S. chrysophrii are modulated according to environmental factors, mainly temperature, thus parasite-host coordination and successful infections are enhanced. Therefore, abiotic factors should be broadly considered to design treatments against this monogenean. The high tolerance to the predicted environmental variations over the next century reported for gilthead sea bream and herein exposed for S. chrysophrii suggests that neither will be notably affected by climate change in the western Mediterranean region.