Jellyfish as vectors of bacterial disease for farmed fish.
Abstract Gill diseases are common, especially in intensively reared fish; they result in respiratory distress, as well as impaired osmoregulation and excretion (1). Bacteria and parasites are common causes of gill disease, as is poor water quality, including planktonic blooms. Swarms or blooms of je...
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crspringernat:10.1038/npre.2009.3631.1 2023-05-15T15:32:51+02:00 Jellyfish as vectors of bacterial disease for farmed fish. Ferguson, Hugh Delannoy, Christian Nicolson, James Sutherland, David Crumlish, Margaret Hay, Steven 2009 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/npre.2009.3631.1 http://www.nature.com/articles/npre.2009.3631.1.pdf http://www.nature.com/articles/npre.2009.3631.1 en eng Springer Science and Business Media LLC https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ CC-BY Nature Precedings ISSN 1756-0357 Psychiatry and Mental health journal-article 2009 crspringernat https://doi.org/10.1038/npre.2009.3631.1 2022-01-04T07:04:47Z Abstract Gill diseases are common, especially in intensively reared fish; they result in respiratory distress, as well as impaired osmoregulation and excretion (1). Bacteria and parasites are common causes of gill disease, as is poor water quality, including planktonic blooms. Swarms or blooms of jellyfish are increasingly and especially problematical (2), and can result in high mortality of farmed fish. Small species of jellyfish such as Philalella quadrata (13 mm diameter) are capable of passing through the mesh of sea-cages and of being sucked into the mouth of fish during respiration. Here we show that the initial damage to gills of farmed Atlantic salmon, likely produced by nematocyst-derived toxins from the jellyfish, was compounded by secondary bacterial infection with Tenacibaculum maritimum. We also demonstrate that these filamentous bacteria were present on the mouth of the jellyfish and that their DNA sequences were almost identical to those of bacteria present on the salmon gills. This suggests that the bacterial lesions were not the result of an opportunistic infection of damaged tissue as previously thought. Instead, P. quadrata is probably acting as a vector for this particular bacterial pathogen, and it is the first time that evidence to support such a link has been presented. We could find no prior literature describing the presence of bacteria associated with jellyfish, other than some studies about their decay. We do not know if all jellyfish of this and other species carry similar bacteria in a symbiotic relationship, nor do we know their source, the role that they play under other circumstances, or indeed whether the jellyfish were themselves diseased. The high proteolytic capabilities of T. maritimum mean that partially digested gill tissues were readily available to the jellyfish, which rely heavily on intracellular digestion for their nutrition. Article in Journal/Newspaper Atlantic salmon Springer Nature (via Crossref) Nature Precedings |
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Open Polar |
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Springer Nature (via Crossref) |
op_collection_id |
crspringernat |
language |
English |
topic |
Psychiatry and Mental health |
spellingShingle |
Psychiatry and Mental health Ferguson, Hugh Delannoy, Christian Nicolson, James Sutherland, David Crumlish, Margaret Hay, Steven Jellyfish as vectors of bacterial disease for farmed fish. |
topic_facet |
Psychiatry and Mental health |
description |
Abstract Gill diseases are common, especially in intensively reared fish; they result in respiratory distress, as well as impaired osmoregulation and excretion (1). Bacteria and parasites are common causes of gill disease, as is poor water quality, including planktonic blooms. Swarms or blooms of jellyfish are increasingly and especially problematical (2), and can result in high mortality of farmed fish. Small species of jellyfish such as Philalella quadrata (13 mm diameter) are capable of passing through the mesh of sea-cages and of being sucked into the mouth of fish during respiration. Here we show that the initial damage to gills of farmed Atlantic salmon, likely produced by nematocyst-derived toxins from the jellyfish, was compounded by secondary bacterial infection with Tenacibaculum maritimum. We also demonstrate that these filamentous bacteria were present on the mouth of the jellyfish and that their DNA sequences were almost identical to those of bacteria present on the salmon gills. This suggests that the bacterial lesions were not the result of an opportunistic infection of damaged tissue as previously thought. Instead, P. quadrata is probably acting as a vector for this particular bacterial pathogen, and it is the first time that evidence to support such a link has been presented. We could find no prior literature describing the presence of bacteria associated with jellyfish, other than some studies about their decay. We do not know if all jellyfish of this and other species carry similar bacteria in a symbiotic relationship, nor do we know their source, the role that they play under other circumstances, or indeed whether the jellyfish were themselves diseased. The high proteolytic capabilities of T. maritimum mean that partially digested gill tissues were readily available to the jellyfish, which rely heavily on intracellular digestion for their nutrition. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Ferguson, Hugh Delannoy, Christian Nicolson, James Sutherland, David Crumlish, Margaret Hay, Steven |
author_facet |
Ferguson, Hugh Delannoy, Christian Nicolson, James Sutherland, David Crumlish, Margaret Hay, Steven |
author_sort |
Ferguson, Hugh |
title |
Jellyfish as vectors of bacterial disease for farmed fish. |
title_short |
Jellyfish as vectors of bacterial disease for farmed fish. |
title_full |
Jellyfish as vectors of bacterial disease for farmed fish. |
title_fullStr |
Jellyfish as vectors of bacterial disease for farmed fish. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Jellyfish as vectors of bacterial disease for farmed fish. |
title_sort |
jellyfish as vectors of bacterial disease for farmed fish. |
publisher |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
publishDate |
2009 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/npre.2009.3631.1 http://www.nature.com/articles/npre.2009.3631.1.pdf http://www.nature.com/articles/npre.2009.3631.1 |
genre |
Atlantic salmon |
genre_facet |
Atlantic salmon |
op_source |
Nature Precedings ISSN 1756-0357 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/npre.2009.3631.1 |
container_title |
Nature Precedings |
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1766363334580371456 |