کد مقاله کد نشریه سال انتشار مقاله انگلیسی نسخه تمام متن
4557765 1329896 2013 10 صفحه PDF دانلود رایگان
عنوان انگلیسی مقاله ISI
Experimental infections of Orchitophrya stellarum (Scuticociliata) in American blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus) and fiddler crabs (Uca minax)
موضوعات مرتبط
علوم زیستی و بیوفناوری علوم کشاورزی و بیولوژیک بوم شناسی، تکامل، رفتار و سامانه شناسی
پیش نمایش صفحه اول مقاله
Experimental infections of Orchitophrya stellarum (Scuticociliata) in American blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus) and fiddler crabs (Uca minax)
چکیده انگلیسی


• Orchitophyra stellarum is highly infectious and pathogenic to blue crabs.
• The parasite is facultative, preferentially infecting injured crabs vs. uninjured crabs.
• Fiddler crabs were easier to manipulate, but exhibited similar infection dynamics as blue crabs.
• Chemotaxis studies indicate that O. stellarum is attracted to crab hemolymph.

Outbreaks of an unidentified ciliate have occurred on several occasions in blue crabs from Chesapeake Bay held during winter months in flow-through systems. The parasite was initially thought to be Mesanophrys chesapeakensis, but molecular analysis identified it as Orchitophyra stellarum, a facultative parasite of sea stars (Asteroidea). We investigated the host-parasite association of O. stellarum in the blue crab host. Crabs were inoculated with the ciliate, or they were held in bath exposures after experimentally induced autotomy of limbs in order to determine potential mechanisms for infection. Crabs inoculated with the ciliate, or exposed to it after experimental autotomy, rapidly developed fatal infections. Crabs that were not experimentally injured, but were exposed to the ciliate, rarely developed infections; thus, indicating that the parasite requires a wound or break in the cuticle as a portal of entry. For comparative purposes, fiddler crabs, Uca minax, were inoculated with the ciliate in a dose-titration experiment. Low doses of the ciliate (10 per crab) were sometimes able to establish infections, but high intensity infections developed quickly at doses over 500 ciliates per crab. Chemotaxis studies were initiated to determine if the ciliate preferentially selected blue crab serum (BCS) over other nutrient sources. Cultures grown on medium with BCS or fetal bovine serum showed some conditioning in their selection for different media, but the outcome in choice experiments indicated that the ciliate was attracted to BCS and not seawater. Our findings indicate that O. stellarum is a facultative parasite of blue crabs. It can cause infections in exposed crabs at 10–15 °C, but it requires a portal of entry for successful host invasion, and it may find injured hosts using chemotaxis.

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ناشر
Database: Elsevier - ScienceDirect (ساینس دایرکت)
Journal: Journal of Invertebrate Pathology - Volume 114, Issue 3, November 2013, Pages 346–355
نویسندگان
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