Pathogens: Monitoring fungal infections in fish

Date: 25 May 2012

Professor Gozlan expresses concern in Nature.

Bournemouth University’s Professor Rodolphe Gozlan has voiced his concern about current monitoring of freshwater fish in leading science publication Nature.

In a correspondence featured in this week’s edition, Gozlan claims freshwater fish populations should be ‘added to the list of species that are threatened by emerging fungal diseases’.

“Government agencies need to adapt their fish-monitoring programmes to establish the extent of the damage these pathogens are causing,” he said.

Freshwater fish are relied on by millions world-wide for food, business and leisure. In eastern Asia, for example, fungal diseases are spreading fast through invasive species.

Professor Gozlan’s concern is based upon many years research in this area; his paper ‘Disease threats on European fish’ was published in Nature itself in 2005.

More recent research from the Conservation Ecology and Environmental Sciences Group at Bournemouth University has shown that 90% of UK Atlantic salmon and 50% of bream die when infected with the parasite Sphaerothecum destruens, better known as the rosette agent. Carp and roach showed a lower level of susceptibility, although the parasite prevalence was still as high as 20%.

“It is essential to convince cash-strapped government agencies that experimental work can give insights into real world epidemiology, and that a major impact of disease on fish populations could go unnoticed using current monitoring systems, which don’t work for fish living in muddy water,” he concluded.

Research references

Feist, S. W., Gozlan, R. E., St-Hilaire, S., Paul, M. and Kent, M., 2005. ‘Biodiversity: Disease threats to European fish’. Nature, 435 (7045), p. 1046.

Andreou, D, Arkush, K., Guegan, J.F. and Gozlan, R. E., 2012. ‘Introduced Pathogens and Native Freshwater Biodiversity: A Case Study of Sphaerothecum destruens’. PLoS One, 7 (5).