Wednesday April 23, 2025
ScienceDaily —
Parasites called myxozoa infect fish populations with deadly diseases, leading to severe losses in types of fish including salmon and trout. This loss of fish stock costs the fishing industry more than £50 million annually worldwide.
In the Amazon basin, home to one of the greatest diversities of fish, an international team of scientists led by King’s College London and Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) have found more than 50% of all fish examined are infected by parasites. This threatens the livelihood of fish farmers, alongside biodiversity and recreational fishing. Elsewhere, some streams in western United States have lost 90% of their trout due to parasitic infection.
To find out more about these parasites, the team from King’s, UNIFESP, Federal University of Western Pará Brazil, University of Zagreb Croatia, University of Cambridge and Natural History Museum London set up a lab on a boat travelling along the Amazon Basin in Brazil where the Tapajós and Amazon Rivers converge, close to the city of Santarém, State of Pará.