In Situ Determination of Perkinsus marinus
Transmission Dynamics in Low Salinity Habitats: Implications for Disease Avoidance Management Strategies and Oyster Restoration (Virginia Portion)
The overall project objective is to determine the transmission dynamics of
P. marinus in low salinity areas in order to develop disease avoidance strategies and to promote wise and effective restoration of oyster populations in low salinity regions of Chesapeake Bay. Specifically we propose to: (1) optimize highly sensitive and quantitative PCR diagnostic techniques for the detection and enumeration of water-borne stages of
P. marinus from water column samples (2) determine the abundance of water-borne
P. marinus cells at four sites located in low salinity areas (9-14 ppt) of three Chesapeake Bay tributaries, the Choptank, Patuxent, and James Rivers, using highly sensitive, specific, and quantitative PCR techniques and (3) determine relative
P. marinus infection rates at the same four low salinity sites by monitoring infection acquisition in uninfected sentinel oysters deployed at each site.
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Eugene M. Burreson and Kimberly S. Reese
Virginia Insititute of Marine Science
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