Eelgrass Wasting Disease: an Overview

Transcription

1 Western Washington University Western CEDAR Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference 2014 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (Seattle, Wash.) Apr 30th, 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM Eelgrass Wasting Disease: an Overview Fred Short Washington (State). Department of Natural Resources, fredtshort@gmail.com Follow this and additional works at: Part of the Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology Commons Short, Fred, "Eelgrass Wasting Disease: an Overview" (2014). Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference This Event is brought to you for free and open access by the Conferences and Events at Western CEDAR. It has been accepted for inclusion in Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference by an authorized administrator of Western CEDAR. For more information, please contact westerncedar@wwu.edu.

2 Eelgrass Wasting Disease: an Overview Fred Short, Ph. D. Nearshore Habitat Program Aquatic Resources Division Washington State Department of Natural Resources

3 Part 1. Eelgrass Wasting Disease Part 2. The Pathogen

4 Part 1. Wasting Disease History 1930s Epidemic dieoff in North Atlantic 1929 in USA and 1930 in Europe => 90% loss of eelgrass Atlantic wide -- Labyrinthula 1950s Disease symptoms in Washington 1960s Decline in New Zealand Disease 1980s Dieoff across some of New England and Netherlands Labyrinthula zosterae 2010s Disease symptoms on Pacific coast

5 Eelgrass Cover and Biomass in Great Bay, New Hampshire Wasting Disease Pollution related decline

6 1986 Early Wasting Disease Great Bay, NH 1986

7 1987 Wasting Disease decline Great Bay, NH 1987

8 1988 Wasting Disease dieoff Great Bay, NH 1988

9 Reproduction from Seeds April September June

10 7 months of growth

11 Wasting Disease Symptoms on Eelgrass

12 Wasting Disease infection Process Zostera marina with disease symptoms on 4 oldest leaves

13 ...an easy and quantitative way to determine the amount of disease... Burdick, D.M., F.T. Short and J. Wolf An index to assess and monitor the progression of the wasting disease in eelgrass, Zostera marina. Marine Ecology Progress Series 94:83-90.

14 San Diego Bay, CA Morro Bay, CA Humboldt Bay, CA Puget Sound, WA

15 Impact of Wasting Disease on Photosynthesis Ralph, P.J. and F.T. Short Impact of the wasting disease pathogen, Labyrinthula zosterae, on the photobiology of eelgrass, Zostera marina. Marine Ecology Progress Series 228:

16 Eelgrass Mesocosm Experiment -- New Hampshire Short et al. 2001

17 The Wasting Disease Symptoms the same in 1930 and Inhibits photosynthesis 3 Infected plants die in 2 months 2 Salinities below 20 reduced wasting disease activity 2 Low salinity (<12) stops disease spread 2 types of disease spread 2 Slow resulting in gradual thinning and decline Rapid resulting in total loss Nitrogen enrichment exacerbates the wasting disease 1 Short, F.T., L.K. Muehlstein and D. Porter Eelgrass wasting disease: cause and recurrence of a marine epidemic. Biological Bulletin 173: Burdick, D.M., F.T. Short and J. Wolf An index to assess and monitor the progression of the wasting disease in eelgrass, Zostera marina. Marine Ecology Progress Series 94: Ralph, P.J. and F.T. Short Impact of the wasting disease pathogen, Labyrinthula zosterae, on the photobiology of eelgrass, Zostera marina. Marine Ecology Progress Series 228:

18 Part 2. Pathogen and Disease Symptoms Compromised tissue Uninfected tissue Dead tissue Infected tissue Ralph, P.J. and F.T. Short Impact of the wasting disease pathogen, Labyrinthula zosterae, on the photobiology of eelgrass, Zostera marina. Marine Ecology Progress Series 228:

19 Labyrinthula zosterae in culture -- a marine slime mold D. Porter 25 µm

20 D. Porter Labyrinthula zosterae cells in slime trail

21 Koch s Postulates Short, F.T., L.K. Muehlstein and D. Porter Eelgrass wasting disease: cause and recurrence of a marine epidemic. Biological Bulletin 173:

22 Labyrinthula, a host-specific pathogen Short, F.T., L.K. Muehlstein and D. Porter Eelgrass wasting disease: cause and recurrence of a marine epidemic. Biological Bulletin 173:

23 Labyrinthula zosterae invades through an eelgrass cell wall. D. Porter 20 µm

24 The Pathogen: Labyrinthula zosterae A primary pathogen of eelgrass Zostera marina L., not merely a secondary infection of senescent leaves 3 Host specific pathogen 2 Phenolic compounds inhibit the pathogen infection 1 Area of tissue photosynthetically compromised by Labyrinthula is substantially larger than black tissue 3 Infected areas expand quickly (0.8 mm h 1 ) through Zostera marina tissue 3 1 Buchsbaum, R.N., F.T. Short, and D.P. Cheney Phenolic-nitrogen interactions in eelgrass, Zostera marina L.: possible implications for disease resistance. Aquatic Botany 37: Muehlstein, L.K., D. Porter, and F.T. Short Labyrinthula zosterae sp. Nov., the causative agent of wasting disease of eelgrass, Zostera marina. Mycologia 83(2): Ralph, P.J. and F.T. Short Impact of the wasting disease pathogen, Labyrinthula zosterae, on the photobiology of eelgrass, Zostera marina. Marine Ecology Progress Series 228:

25 WASTING DISEASE LOSS Labyrinthula zosterae

26 Questions?

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32 L L Labyrinthula zosterae Eelgrass cell structure dissolve

33 Great Bay, New Hampshire

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