Etiology and prevalence of skin disease in Holothuria arguinensis
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1
Centro de Ciências do Mar do Algarve, Fisheries, Biodiversity and Conservation, Portugal
Sea cucumbers is seriously over-exploited by fishery pressure, pointing at aquaculture as profitable alternative for a highly demanding market (González-Wangüemert et al. 2015). However, occurrence of diseases could cause serious economic losses and becoming a limiting factor for sustainability of this industry (Yang et al. 2015). Despite that important fact, any study has been performed upon identification of common pathologies and isolation of etiological agents in Atlanto-Mediterranean species, probably because aquaculture of sea cucumber in Europe is still at an early stage. Invertebrates medicine is not easy, but provides an opportunity to contribute to a new and emergent field of animal health (Lewbart 2012). This work addresses the study of etiopathological and epidemiological aspects of diseases, in Holothuria arguinensis. This sea cucumber is becoming target species for aquaculture in Europe (Dominguez-Godino et al., 2015).
Sampling was carried out across Ria Formosa Natural Park, where previous information about density, habitat description, human pressures and presence of sick individuals have been reported by our team. This habitat can be considered a semi-closed system, which will allow to infer valuable information about prevalence and morbility of main diseases in wild landscapes with high human influences. Disections were performed and tissue samples were collected from integument, respiratory tree, Polian vesicule and gonads. Microorganisms were cultured in agarose media with sea water and incubated at 18ºC (in dark) until enough growth was noticeable (5-12 days). 16S rRNA gene were amplified using primers 27F/1492R (Muyzer and Marty 2014). Identification was assessed using a metagenomic workflow.
Bacterial agents have been identified during outdoor cultivation and wild environment. Etiology of pathological manifestations in integument was associated to bacteria species of the family Bacillaceae, and fungi. In contrast, etiology of internal lesions was associated to species of the families Pseudoalteromonadaceae and Aeromonadaceae. Mortality was described higher in diseases with integumet manifestations (Yang et al. 2015). In contrast, morbility should be higher in diseases with internal pathology, by causing insidious clinical signs (lost of weigth, deformations, atrophia).
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by CUMARSUR project (ref. PTDC/MAR-BIO/5948/2014) funded by Fundacão para Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal). M. González-Wangüemert was funded by FCT Investigator Programme-Career Development (ref. IF/00998/2014).
References
1. Domínguez-Godino et al. (2015) A new species for sea cucumber ranching and aquaculture: breeding and rearing of Holothuria arguinensis. Aquaculture, 438: 122
2. González-Wangüemert et al. (2015) Effects of fishery protection on growth and genetic structure of three target sea cucumber species. Hydrobiologia, 743: 65
3. Lewbart (2012) Invertebrate medicine. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, USA
4. Muyzer and Marty (2014) Molecular methods in microbiologically influenced corrosion research, monitoring and control. In: Skovhus et al. (eds) Applications of Molecular Microbiological Methods. Caister Academic Press
5. Yang et al. (2015) The sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus. Elsevier Inc., San Diego, USA
6. Yin-Geng et al. (2004) Diseases of cultured sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus in China. In: FAO Fish Tech Paper. 463
Keywords:
Sea Cucumbers,
marine invertebrate veterinary,
Aquaculture microbiology,
Epidemiology,
disease progression
Conference:
IMMR | International Meeting on Marine Research 2016, Peniche, Portugal, 14 Jul - 15 Jul, 2016.
Presentation Type:
Oral presentation
Topic:
Aquaculture
Citation:
Canovas
FG,
Domínguez-Godino
JA and
González-Wangüemert
M
(2016). Etiology and prevalence of skin disease in Holothuria arguinensis.
Front. Mar. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
IMMR | International Meeting on Marine Research 2016.
doi: 10.3389/conf.FMARS.2016.04.00118
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Received:
05 May 2016;
Published Online:
13 Jul 2016.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Fernando G Canovas, Centro de Ciências do Mar do Algarve, Fisheries, Biodiversity and Conservation, Faro, Faro, 8005-139, Portugal, fcanovas@ucam.edu