This book uniquely combines basic biology and aquaculture to define gaps in the nutritional research and practices of farmed fishes and invertebrates. Due to the positive effects of prebiotics on human health and aging, adding prebiotics to aquafeeds, either individually or in various combinations, is becoming more widely adopted. This is one of the fastest-growing areas of aquatic animal nutrition. Although the underlying mechanisms are relatively well documented, they are not fully understood. The main objective of developing and using prebiotics as functional feeds is to enhance growth, reproduction, immunity, and resistance to pathogens and stress. This goal is often achieved with low-dose supplementation, but not with excess doses. However, the excess range and long-term application are rarely well documented and require further research.

Prebiotic supplementation includes β-glucans, chitin, and other saccharides in complex and oligomeric forms. Sulfated saccharides from marine macroalgae are of growing interest. Other prebiotic supplements include hemicelluloses and various soil components, such as clay minerals, black carbon (biochar), and humic substances. Discussions of prebiotics emphasize epigenetic mechanisms such as trained immunity and DNA methylation as an epigenetic clock. Trained immunity appears to be more widespread than anticipated. While it is beginning to be understood, it deserves intensive study. Research on the epigenetic clock in aquatic animals is in its infancy, but, inspired by human research, it is expected to provide indications of age, health, and nutritional status for aquatic counterparts.

Christian E.W. Steinberg, educated as ecologist, is interested in pure and applied limnology, particularly aquatic organisms and their nutrition as well as the action of natural aquatic xenobiotic substances. Particularly, humic substances and their long-term impact in entire lake systems as well as their short-term and transgenerational effect in fishes and aquatic invertebrates have been and continue to be studied. Consequently, in 2003, he published the highly acclaimed Ecology of Humic Substances in Freshwater with Springer. The continuation of this research in­terest led to the identification of beneficial effects of natural mild environmental stresses, for instance, by dissolved humic substances, as ecological driving force and the publication of the 2012 Springer book Stress Ecology. In 2018, he began publishing the Aquatic Animal Nutrition series with Springer with "A Mechanistic Perspective from Individuals to Generations" (2018), "Organic Macro- and Micro-Nutrients" (2022), "Plant Preparations" (2024) "Plant Compounds and Dietary Obstacles" (2025) and, as a side product, he co-authored in 2026 "The Ecology of Phycotoxins: Hown Animals Deal with Algae-Born Xenobiotics" with Thora Lieke.  In 1995, he was appointed chairholder of freshwater ecology at Humboldt University in Berlin and, for 10 years, director of the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany. He has published more than three hundred papers in peer-reviewed journals and was frequently appointed guest professor at Salzburg University (Austria), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Huazhong Agricultural University Wuhan (China), and, since 2009 permanently, Kunming University of Science and Technology (China).