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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Evidence That Qpx (Quahog Parasite Unknown) Is Not Present In Hatchery-Produced Hard Clam Seed, Susan E. Ford, Roxanna Smolowitz, Lisa M. Ragone Calvo, Rochelle Barber, John N. Kraueter
Evidence That Qpx (Quahog Parasite Unknown) Is Not Present In Hatchery-Produced Hard Clam Seed, Susan E. Ford, Roxanna Smolowitz, Lisa M. Ragone Calvo, Rochelle Barber, John N. Kraueter
VIMS Articles
A protistan parasite known as QPX (Quahog Parasite Unknown) has been recently associated with disease and mortality of adult hard clams, Mercenaria mercenaria, from Canada to Virginia. There is concern that the organism may be transported in hatchery-reared seed. Tissue sections of 2,203 seed clams (<1-20 mm) from 13 different hatcheries in six states, collected from 1995 to 1997 and examined by pathologists in three laboratories, failed to show QPX or QPX-like organisms. Further, QPX was not detected in a total of 756 hatchery-produced clams examined during their first year of field growout. From this, we conclude that hatchery-produced seed clams are an unlikely source of QPX organisms.