Abstract
An intracellular bacterium Candidatus Xenohaliotis californiensis, also called Withering-Syndrome Rickettsia-Like Organism (WS-RLO), is the cause of mass mortalities that are the chief reason for endangerment of black abalone (Haliotis cracherodii). Using a real-time PCR assay, we found that a shore-based abalone farm (AF) in Santa Barbara, CA, USA discharged WS-RLO DNA into the ocean. Several other shore-based AFs discharge effluent into critical habitat for black abalone in California and this might affect the recovery of wild black abalone. Existing regulatory frameworks exist that could help protect wild species from pathogens released from shore-based aquaculture.
Highlights
Black abalone (Haliotis cracherodii) were once stacked three deep in the California intertidal (Cox, 1960)
Our results show that outflow from a California abalone aquaculture facility contains Withering Syndrome Rickettsia-Like Organism (WS-RLO) DNA
Wild abalone could exist there undetected and several dozen infected abalone are housed in the flow-through sea water system at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), CA, USA, though outflow from these abalone is not discharged directly into the ocean
Summary
Black abalone (Haliotis cracherodii) were once stacked three deep in the California intertidal (Cox, 1960). Lying next to the empty quadrats were dying abalone, their muscular foot withered and unable to remain attached to the rocks. These “withering syndrome” die offs were often rapid and extensive (Richards and Davis, 1993). Withering syndrome spread north and south from the Santa Barbara Channel Islands over the two decades throughout most of the black abalone’s range (Lafferty and Kuris, 1993; Altstatt et al, 1996). Extirpated from most of its range with no sign of population recovery, the National Marine Fisheries Service listed the black abalone as endangered in 2009 (Neuman et al, 2010). By 2008, production was dominated by 3–4 farms (Moore and Moore, 2008) and had risen to ∼227 tonnes (US $8–9 million), a production level that remains true today
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