Disease and Environmental Stress

Black basses (Micropterus spp) are enigmatic North American sportfishes that support the most economically valuable freshwater sport fishery in the United States and serve as keystone predators within aquatic ecosystems. Hyperpigmented melanistic lesions on the surface of black basses have been observed in a number of waterbodies across the country in increasing frequency. We have recently...

This project, in collaboration with the NJ Pinelands Commission and the USGS NJ Water Center, is evaluating potential effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals from point and nonpoint sources in the Pinelands Area, a research cluster as part of the Delaware River Watershed Initiative.

Human and Ecological Health Impacts Associated with Water Reuse and Conservation Practices

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are compounds with the potential to interfere with normal endocrine communication in organisms.

Evaluating the pathogenicity and replication of a novel aquareovirus that infects the endangered fountain darter, Etheostoma fonticola

Prevalence of novel, emerging hepatitis viruses in wild white suckers and their association with liver tumors in the Great Lakes region

Development of Deployable Multispectral Sensors for Monitoring

Deaths of young-of-year smallmouth bass in the Chesapeake Bay drainage has been noted since 2005. Studies of affected fish have found bacterial, viral and parasitic infections. Mixed infections suggest these fish are immunosuppressed. Understanding the role of specific pathogens and environmental factors that contribute to their presence is important but equally important is the understanding of...

The Challenge: In eastern North America there is a viral disease called Eastern Equine Encephalitis, or EEE. This virus is transmitted among native bird species by the mosquito, Culiseta melanura, but does not cause disease in these passerine species. However, the virus is capable of causing severe disease or death in horses, some game bird species, humans and whooping cranes. In the fall of 1984...

Disease may be caused by infectious agents, nutritional imbalances, physiological or genetically-based abnormalities, and suboptimal environmental conditions, acting either alone or in combination with other factors. In many instances, environmental stressors may merge forces with an infectious agent or some other non-infectious factor to produce or exacerbate a state of disease. By studying...

Striped bass (Morone saxatilis) displaying ulcerative skin lesions and chronic wasting, both typical clinical signs of mycobacteriosis, a bacterial disease that is problematic among many types of fishes around the world.