VIMS study uncovers new cause for intensification of oyster disease

[jack1747]

https://www.vims.edu/newsandevents/topstories/2021/dermo_intensification.php?fbclid=IwAR2C56ER-wLS9xAg9uYiSbRpQ0YD7fbvwRfTntfGlv98YQywJ8rgzdY-z1Q

"Rise in disease virulence due to evolving parasite, not just drought

A new paper in Scientific Reports led by researchers at William & Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science challenges increased salinity and seawater temperatures as the established explanation for a decades-long increase in the prevalence and deadliness of a major oyster disease in the coastal waters of the mid-Atlantic.

Dr. Ryan Carnegie, the paper's lead author, says "We present an entirely new lens through which we can view our last 35 years of oyster history in the Chesapeake Bay region. We now know the great intensification of Dermo disease in the 1980s wasn't simply due to drought. It was more fundamentally due to the emergence of a new and highly virulent form of Perkinsus marinus, the parasite that causes Dermo."