Deformity, erosion, lesion, tumor, and parasite (DELT) anomalies in fish communities of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, USA: a regional assessment and potential landscape drivers.

ABSTRACT: Fish diseases in freshwater ecosystems pose significant ecological and socioeconomic challenges, yet monitoring them in wild populations is complex due to interactions between pathogens, hosts, and environmental conditions. We examine the prevalence and watershed-scale landscape drivers of external deformity, erosion, lesion, tumor, and parasite (DELT) anomalies in 57 riverine fish species using a large dataset (577,266 individuals collected 2008-2019) from the Chesapeake Bay watershed that originated from state and federal agencies. Overall, DELT prevalence was low (1.4%), but was higher in larger, longer-lived species, including Channel Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) (18.9%), Rock Bass (Ambloplites rupestris) (7.6%), Smallmouth Bass (Micropterus dolomieu) (7.3%), Brown Bullhead (Ameiurus

SUBMITTER: Breitmeyer SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12334471 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature