Challenges to Crustacean Muscle Quality From Environmental and Operational Stresses: Performance, Mechanisms, and Management

Crustaceans serve as a crucial source of high-quality protein, but their muscle quality and flavor are highly sensitive to environmental stress during aquaculture, processing, and transportation. Most existing studies have primarily focused on stress responses in gills, hepatopancreas, and intestines. In recent years, increasing attention has been directed toward stress-induced deterioration in crustacean muscle. The physiological regulation of crustaceans under stress involves complex processes such as signal transduction, gene expression, and energy metabolism, which are closely associated with muscle characteristics and form the mechanistic basis for subsequent quality and alterations. This review then systematically discusses the effects of major stressors, including temperature, salinity, hypoxia, ammonia, and dissolved oxygen, on muscle nutrition, texture, flavor, and structural integrity. In addition, chemical or nutritional stress, such as exposure to metals, pesticides, microplastics, and nutritional imbalance, can lead to pathological changes in muscle tissue, which can lead to irreversible damage and may reduce consumer experience and acceptance to a certain extent. The review further highlights recent progress in understanding how the interplay of energy metabolism disorders, oxidative imbalance, and gene regulation mediates these quality. Finally, strategies for mitigating stress and improving muscle quality, including environmental optimization, nutritional regulation, and postharvest management, are evaluated. Emerging biotechnologies offer new avenues for mitigating stress and improving muscle quality, yet their application in crustacean aquaculture demands continued research. Despite these advances, quantifying the interactive effects among multiple stressors and developing sustainable stress management systems remain major challenges for ensuring high-quality crustacean products.