Broad thermal tolerance is negatively correlated with virulence in an opportunistic bacterial pathogen.

ABSTRACT: Predicting the effects of global increase in temperatures on disease virulence is challenging, especially for environmental opportunistic bacteria, because pathogen fitness may be differentially affected by temperature within and outside host environment. So far, there is very little empirical evidence on the connections between optimal temperature range and virulence in environmentally growing pathogens. Here, we explored whether the virulence of an environmentally growing opportunistic fish pathogen, Flavobacterium columnare, is malleable to evolutionary changes via correlated selection on thermal tolerance. To this end, we experimentally quantified the thermal performance curves (TPCs) for maximum biomass yield of 49 F. columnare isolates from eight different geographic lo

SUBMITTER: Ashrafi R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6183471 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature