Deciphering the importance of herbal immunostimulants in aquaculture, using citation network analysis: A futuristic sustainable approach

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food sector round the globe, with huge potential for expansion. The objectives of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be met with concerted efforts of stakeholders for circular economy. It plays a critical role in global food production and over half of the aquatic foods for human consumption are farmed. According to several studies bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites are the main causative agents of aquaculture diseases. Antibiotics and synthetic chemicals are typically used by fish farmers to overcome these infections and reducing the mortality rate. Medicinal herbs have been used for thousands of years, as immunostimulants. The use of medicinal herbs as natural, risk-free substitutes for antibiotics and immunoprophylactics in aquaculture may prove to be advantageous. In this study, scholarly data was retrieved using Scopus database and were manually curated and approximately 150 scholarly articles were obtained using customized keyword search to be used for citation network analysis. There are a total of 5 clusters based on the relevant keywords consisting of 87 items and 2195 links amongst them. The work related to dietary supplements, immunology and fish foods have gained more relevance since 2016, as revealed by its interactions with relevant terms. In this research article, we aim to provide an overview of current research in this field, identify research hotspots, project future development prospects, and make recommendations for further research in aquaculture using sustainable approaches by exploiting the natural herbs and plants as immunostimulants. This work is related to the sustainable approach exploring medicinal plants as immunostimulants and will definitely find new promising avenues in this area.