Free access article
Aquat. Living Resour. 17 (2004) 395-395
DOI: 10.1051/alr:2004048
Foreword
A. Figueras Abstract
Bivalve diseases are one of the critical bottle necks causing important and
recurrent losses in bivalve culture. In some cases, the presence of
infectious pathogens has caused the complete destruction of bivalve culture
as it occurred to the flat oyster (
Ostrea edulis) in Europe.
Research on bivalve diseases has relied mainly on histological techniques
and has been mostly focused on pathogen morphology and
ultrastructure, effect of external factors on pathogens or infectivity, and
on the development of immune and molecular diagnostic techniques. Recently,
specific PCRs have been set up for the most important bivalve pathogens
being more sensitive than traditional techniques such as histology.
Although critical advances have been reported in the
last years on bivalve
diseases, increased efforts should be done on several aspects:
- Set up of low cost, efficient and sensitive diagnostic methods.
- Search for no so "evident" pathogens. Why are there so few viral bivalve pathogens?
- Pathogenicity studies of identified organisms.
- Mortality studies at the culture places.
- Effect of pathogens on bivalve immune system.
In recent years, several antimicrobial peptides have been described in
bivalves on the basis of their biochemical structure and biological
activity. Could they be used as quantitative criteria in selection
programmes? Which is their role in defense against infections? Could
bivalves be used as production systems of "interesting molecules"?
A future exciting research is in front of us. Now, more
than ever, the need
to develop multidisciplinary international research, involving as many
research groups working on shellfish pathology as possible, is more than
evident.
I would like to thank all contributors to this
ALR issue for their effort and
enthusiasm in discussing these and other interesting ideas related to this
expanding research field.
Dr Antonio Figueras
Associate Editor, ALR
Instituto Investigaciones Marinas, CSIC
Eduardo Cabello 6
36208 Vigo
Spain
e-mail: pato1@iim.csic.es
© EDP Sciences, IFREMER, IRD 2004
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