URI and VIMS Researchers Show Aquaculture Oysters Can Limit Spread of Dermo in Wild Oysters
Recent research carried out at the University of Rhode Island and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science has found that growing farmed oysters can reduce disease loads in wild oysters.
This counter-intuitive finding is based on the fact that the primary killer of wild oysters is Dermo, a parasite that occurs naturally in the environment, and lives in the tissue of oysters. The single celled parasite is harmless to humans, and has nothing to do with bacteria such as vibrio.
"The very act of aquaculture has positive effects on wild populations of oysters," said Tal Ben-Horin, a postdoctoral fellow at the URI Department of Fisheries...
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