Dataset AqADAPT: Physicochemical Parameters, Vibrio Abundance, and Species Determination in Water Columns of Two Adriatic Sea Aquaculture Sites

Abstract

Aquaculture provides more than 50% of all seafood for human consumption. This important industrial sector is already under pressure from climate-change-induced shifts in water column temperature, nutrient loads, precipitation patterns, microbial community composition, and ocean acidification, all affecting fish welfare. Disease-related risks are also shifting with important implications for risk from vibriosis, a disease that can lead to massive economic losses. Adaptation to these pressures pose numerous challenges for aquaculture producers, policy makers, and researchers. The dataset AqADAPT aims to help the development of management and adaptation tools by providing (i) measurements of physicochemical (temperature, salinity, total dissolved solids, pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, transparency, total nitrogen, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, total phosphorus, total particulate matter, particulate organic matter, and particulate inorganic matter) and microbiological (heterotrophic (total) bacteria, fecal indicators, and Vibrio abundance) parameters of seawater and (ii) biochemical determination of culturable bacteria in two locations near floating cage fish farms in the Adriatic Sea. Water sampling was conducted seasonally in two fish farms (Cres and Vrgada) and corresponding reference (control) sites between 2019 and 2021 of four vertical layers for a total of 108 observations: the surface, 6 m, 12 m, and the bottom.