Cleaner fish behavioral ecology: Its implications toward wild fishery and salmonid aquaculture sustainability

Cleaner fish is a keystone species in their natural ecosystem for they have specialized feeding habits that are removing and eating ectoparasites which are colonizing the skin, mouth, and gill cavities of larger fish. Their presence dictates the species distribution, diversity, recruitment, and abundance of different teleost species. They play a very important role in the survival, growth, and welfare of other fishes. They established cleaning stations where a certain location turns into a very rich fishing ground visited by various species of demersal, pelagic including migratory and cartilaginous fishes, that made a stopover and an influx of visiting species that search for it. They formed an interaction known as “cleaning symbiosis” in which cleaners gain nutrition and protection from predators and in return for a cleaning service. Aquaculture, on the other hand, is one of the destructive anthropogenic activities if not well managed. One of the highlighted effluents from aquaculture is the use of pharmaceutical chemical treatments to ease diseases of cultured stocks. Hence, a sustainable and eco-friendly approach to mitigate and eradicate diseases is one of the main concerns of the aquaculturist nowadays. Salmon aquaculture encountered fish louse as one of the most destructive parasites in the industry. However, these parasites have been controlled by a cleaner fish to the extent of suppressing them. These cleaning potentials provide a long-term control of sea louse infestation over a production cycle, provided that cleaner fish are maintain healthy and confined. Thus, the ecological and aquaculture impact of the cleaner fish is being highlighted in this review.