Aquaculture is emerging as the fastest growing food-producing industry in the world because of the increasing demand for food fish consumption. However, the intensive culture of food fish has led to outbreaks of various bacterial diseases, resulting in annual economic losses to the aquaculture industry estimated at billions of dollars worldwide. Feeding infected fish with antibiotic-medicated f...

Achromobacter xylosoxidans is an aerobic, nonfermenting gram-negative rod and described as a waterborne bacterium since it habits aquatic environments ubiquitously. It has frequently been isolated from aquatic surroundings in the hospital and from various human body sites. Although occasionally considered a non-pathogen, A. xylosoxidans has been associated with outbreaks of nosocomial infection...

Ranaviruses are capable of infecting amphibians from at least 14 families and over 70 individual species. Ranaviruses infect multiple cell types, often culminating in organ necrosis and massive hemorrhaging. Subclinical infections have been documented, although their role in ranavirus persistence and emergence remains unclear. Water is an effective transmission medium for ranaviruses, and survi...

High resolution paleoecological analyses from Shepherd Lake, Ontario, Canada, show that 10 to 100 year lake level fluctuations due to climatic change were responsible for alterations in the aquatic biodiversity 5,700 to 5,100 years ago. Thermophilic aquatics such as the Bushy pondweed Najas flexilis, charophyte algae and aquatic invertebrates indicate water level fluctuations of several meters,...

Flavobacterium columnare is a Gram-negative fish pathogen causing columnaris disease in wild and cultured fish species. Although the pathogen is widespread in aquatic environments and fish worldwide, little is known about biology of F. columnare and mechanisms of columnaris disease pathogenesis. Previously we presented the complete genome sequence of F. columnare strain ATCC 49512. Here we pres...

Generalist microorganisms are the agents of many emerging infectious diseases (EIDs), but their natural life cycles are difficult to predict due to the multiplicity of potential hosts and environmental reservoirs. Among 250 known human EIDs, many have been traced to tropical rain forests and specifically freshwater aquatic systems, which act as an interface between microbe-rich sediments or sub...

Nutrient pollution has the potential to alter many ecological interactions, including host-parasite relationships. One of the largest sources of nutrient pollution comes from anthropogenic alteration of the nitrogen (N) cycle, specifically the increased rate of nitrate (NO3-N) deposition to aquatic environments, potentially altering host-parasite relationships. This study aimed to assess the me...

Background: The approaches chosen for control of Outbreaks of infectious diseases in Aquatic farming industry include improvement of environmental conditions, stocking of specific pathogen free (SPF) brood stockings, and application of vaccines and immunostimulants. Despite numerous studies on the effects of Ergosan on immune system of aquatic animals, there is no data available on ant...

The facultative human pathogen Vibrio cholerae can be isolated from estuarine and aquatic environments. V. cholerae is well recognized and extensively studied as the causative agent of the human intestinal disease cholera. In former centuries cholera was a permanent threat even to the highly developed populations of Europe, North America, and the northern part of Asia. Today, cholera still rema...