2011 Annual Meeting of the Society for Invertebrate Pathology
Figure 1. Participants in the 2011 annual meeting of the Society for Invertebrate Pathology, 7 August, at Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Frank Morado of the Fisheries Resource Pathobiology group participated in a special symposium of the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Society for Invertebrate Pathology in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, held 7-11 August 2011.
The special session, sponsored by the international organization Office of Economic Cooperation and Development and titled "Disease in Aquatic Crustaceans: Problems and Solutions for Global Food Security" was held 7 August and organized and chaired by Dr. Grant Stentiford (Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Weymouth Fish Disease Laboratory, Weymouth, Dorset, UK).
Invited members (Fig. 13) from international government agencies and academic institutions represented interests in both aquaculture and wild capture crustacean fisheries. The focus of the symposium was the impact or potential impact of disease on global food security, with respect to crustaceans. The symposium served as an information gathering meeting identifying major disease issues in wild capture crustacean fisheries and crustacean aquaculture.
Dr. Morado's oral presentation was titled "Protistan parasites as mortality drivers in cold water crab fisheries." Problems in assessing the effects of disease on crustacean population abundance and distribution were discussed. Several protistan pathogens were identified that appear to cause significant mortalities in cold water crab species, but other pathogens were identified that affect product quality. In either situation, the availability of crustaceans to consumers is affected.