Improving marine disease surveillance through sea temperature monitoring, outlooks and projections

To forecast marine disease outbreaks as oceans warm requires new environmental surveillance tools. We describe an iterative process for developing these tools that combines research, development and deployment for suitable systems. The first step is to identify candidate host-pathogen systems. The 2...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Main Authors: Maynard, J, van Hooidonk, R, Harvell, CD, Eakin, CM, Liu, G, Shields, Jeffrey D.
Format: Text
Language:unknown
Published: W&M ScholarWorks 2016
Subjects:
Epizootic Shell Disease
Lobster Homarus-Americanus
Southern New-England
Crab Callinectes-Sapidus
Coral Bleaching Events
Climate-Change
Infectious-Diseases
Lepeophtheirus-Salmonis
Crassostrea-Gigas
Hematodinium Sp
Aquatic Health Sciences Peer-Reviewed Articles
Aquaculture and Fisheries
Crassostrea gigas
Online Access:https://scholarworks.wm.edu/vimsarticles/808
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/context/vimsarticles/article/1808/viewcontent/20150208.full.pdf
Description
Summary:To forecast marine disease outbreaks as oceans warm requires new environmental surveillance tools. We describe an iterative process for developing these tools that combines research, development and deployment for suitable systems. The first step is to identify candidate host-pathogen systems. The 24 candidate systems we identified include sponges, corals, oysters, crustaceans, sea stars, fishes and sea grasses (among others). To illustrate the other steps, we present a case study of epizootic shell disease (ESD) in the American lobster. Increasing prevalence of ESD is a contributing factor to lobster fishery collapse in southern New England (SNE), raising concerns that disease prevalence will increase in the northern Gulf of Maine under climate change. The lowest maximum bottom temperature associated with ESD prevalence in SNE is 12 degrees C. Our seasonal outlook for 2015 and long-term projections show bottom temperatures greater than or equal to 12 degrees C may occur in this and coming years in the coastal bays of Maine. The tools presented will allow managers to target efforts to monitor the effects of ESD on fishery sustainability and will be iteratively refined. The approach and case example highlight that temperature-based surveillance tools can inform research, monitoring and management of emerging and continuing marine disease threats.

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