Pancreas Disease in Salmon

Trout and Salmon are thought to be some of the most eloquent freshwater fish species that live in North America.  Fly-fisherman travel from all across the state to fish for them in the Adirondacks, especially in Lake Placid.  Thus, why they are the most stocked fish family in New York state by the NYDEC.  I myself am bias to bass as an angler, but I have caught my fair share of salmon and trout, and I realize that they are a more fragile species when it comes to handling.  I will be giving a speech this week in my communicating biology class on handling of rainbow trout, so when I read this article in sciencedaily about Pancreas Disease in Salmon I thought it would tie in perfectly.

Rainbow trout, Onchorhynchus mykiss   

       
Atlantic Salmon, Salmo salar

It has come to the attention of many salmon fish farmers that their stock has been dying from some sort of disease.  The study performed by Anne Stene she has realized that this disease is Pancreas Disease, which is detrimental to Salmonids.  What is really scary is that infected or dead fish can pass on this virus through the wind or the current of the ocean.  What was also found was that the fat from the dead fish would float to the top of the water and if the fish were to come in contact with this fat they would also become infected.  Like I have mentioned in previous posts there are millions of people who depend on the ocean for their lively hood, so with a disease that can be passed on so easily from one fish farm to the next this is a huge topic.  Another factor that is critical is the virus's life period that the ocean allows it to possess, with the water being normal cold and quite clean it can survive for long periods of time.  If those of you have read my recent posts about the ocean water temperature increasing, this is just another result of the water temperature rising.  An interesting finding was that the salmon were not affected when they were in their smolt/fry stages of life.  
Atlantic Salmon in smolt stage of life

In Lake Champlain the NYDEC has been stocking Atlantic Landlocked Salmon for years, trying to get them to reproduce in the wild to create a wild ALS population, but with water temperatures rising, competition with other species like bass, and the abundance of alewives can make the salmon infertile due to a thiamine deficiency from alewives.  I would like to hopefully get a job one day in the NYDEC, and there is plenty of work to be done in this field of study.  Now after reading the article that has been posted, it is important that as many of you read it that are fish farmers or care for salmon, because it is crucial that infection be stopped before the growth phase can be met with rising water temperatures.  This is when the virus is at its most dangerous state, so with getting rid of infected or dead fish, and fat from those fish it is possible to counteract the damage that can be done.  

Tiny Organisms, Big Change

Last week I talked about an article published in sciencedaily that addressed how the ocean is warming and how the ocean is becoming less productive.  This week another report was published on how a cold water plankton species (C. finmarchicus) is struggling to hold on and may go extinct.  This just sheds more light on how much the oceans and the life inside them are struggling.  It's just not at the level of the ocean, I have seen this first hand on our lake, and currently a researcher at the Lake Champlain Research Institute is delving into a similar situation with Mysids in Lake Champlain.  Mysids for those of you who do not know are like a freshwater shrimp, and I have had the pleasure of getting to see them first hand.  This species was thought to be abundant in Lake Champlain, but warming conditions and the abundance of alewives in the lake have caused this species to struggle.

This article talks about how ocean fisheries are also going to see change with this plankton species possibly going extinct.  Certain species such as the very similar warm water species of plankton will thrive as the cold water species gets pushed out.  This is interesting because I can also relate this to another situation that I have seen in Lake Champlain, this one having to do with trout and salmon species not being as abundant as the lake warms and now we see bass taking over the lake.  This situation addresses an idea on Lake Champlain that can be considered profitable money wise through bass tournament organizations such as FLW, but on the ocean like I mentioned last week around 470-880 million people are dependent on the ocean.  This warming on a large scale could affect fishery markets huge declining populations of cod and hake, fishermen who are dependent on these fish could lose jobs, but it may be possible that we could see these species and another thrive.

Calanoid copepods are a plankton species that are a vital food source for fish larvae and therefore important for all commercial fisheries

With these two papers being recently posted in less than two weeks, it raises an interesting question in my mind that, what can we expect next week?  What I find interesting about ecosystems is how such a little organism can make such a huge change.  My main question about this species was directly answered in this paper itself, and that was could be see this species adapt and live with these warming conditions.  Unfortunately, it seems to be very unlikely due to the short life of these organisms that usually lasts a year at longest, I am very interested to see how the research with the Mysids will look in comparison to this research.  It makes me wonder if the Mysids will have a similar fate, as these plankton.  At the end of the day my personal opinion on the matter at hand is that global warming is inevitable because the planet has gone through cooling and warming periods, but we get to see the survival of the fittest.

What May Come from the Beautiful Blue

After reading an article that has been posted recently in ScienceDaily, "World Ocean Systems Undermined by Climate Change 2100", it has made me wonder how my children will see the ocean and the rest of our world one day.  This article addresses many issues that us as humans have done that will impact our oceans in negative ways.  These researchers predict that productivity and biodiversity will see negative effects, the oceans will be begin to warm and have less dissolved oxygen.  The authors/scientists in this article really drive home the point by explaining that anywhere from 470-880 million people are dependent on what the ocean produces and contributes to society.  Even after reading an article such as this, it is hard for myself to come to terms with what will happen to our oceans if what is mentioned in the article does happen as said.  I like to think of myself as an environmentally friendly person and definitely a person who loves to be on, near, or around water, I'm just hoping that one day people will be fortunate enough to enjoy it as much as I have.




Vibrant coral reef. No corner of the world ocean will be untouched by climate change by 2100, according to a new study. (Credit: © vlad61_61 / Fotolia)