Morphological plasticity and phylogeny in a monogenean parasite transferring between wild and reared fish populations.

ABSTRACT: It is widely accepted that disease interactions between cultured and wild fish occur repeatedly, although reported cases have mainly relied just on the observation of similar symptoms in affected populations. Whether there is an explicit pathogen transfer between fish stocks, or each develops its own pathogen population, has been insufficiently studied and rarely supported by molecular tools. In this study, we used population dynamics and genetic structure of the monogenean Furnestinia echeneis in reared and neighbouring wild sea bream to indicate pathogen transfer, characterized by the phenotypic plasticity of the parasite attachment apparatus and the lack of phylogenetic differentiation. The observed pattern of genetic variation inferred by nuclear DNA Internal Transcribed Spacer 1 (ITS1

SUBMITTER: Mladineo I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3631154 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature