Rapid Molecular Tools for Authenticating Fish Species and Protecting Marine Biodiversity

Short description of what will be presented during the seminar:

Fish play a central role in the Mediterranean diet, providing high-quality protein, essential micronutrients, and ω3 fatty acids. In many Mediterranean countries, including Greece, consumers continue to prefer wild-caught fish over aquaculture products. High-value species such as red porgy (Pagrus pagrus), common dentex (Dentex dentex), dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus), and white grouper (E. aeneus) are sold at premium prices, creating strong incentives for mislabelling and substitution with cheaper or imported species. Mislabelling not only deceives consumers and exposes them to potential allergen risks, but also contributes to unsustainable or illegal fishing that threatens vulnerable marine species, distorts fisheries management data, and ultimately marine biodiversity. Accurate species identification is therefore essential. It protects consumers from fraud, supports regulatory compliance, and ensures sustainable fisheries management. It also safeguards biodiversity by preventing the illegal trade of vulnerable species and enabling monitoring of overfishing, bycatch, and aquaculture escapes. Traditional morphological inspection becomes unreliable once fish are processed, while sequencing-based methods, although accurate, are often too slow and costly for routine screening. To address these challenges, non-sequencing molecular tools, particularly species-specific real-time PCR combined with high-resolution melting (HRM) analysis, have emerged as rapid, sensitive, and cost-effective alternatives. These techniques enable the discrimination of closely related species across all processing states, supporting large-scale market surveillance and regulatory enforcement. The development and implementation of such methodologies provide robust tools for fraud prevention, improved traceability, and effective conservation monitoring, ultimately contributing to the sustainable management of Mediterranean marine resources.

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