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The Parasite That Causes Whirling Disease, Myxobolus Cerebralis, Is Genetically Variable Within And Across Spatial Scales, Nilanjan Lodh, Billie L. Kerans, Lori Stevens

Clinical Lab Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Understanding the genetic structure of parasite populations on the natural landscape can reveal important aspects of disease ecology and epidemiology and can indicate parasite dispersal across the landscape. Myxobolus cerebralis (Myxozoa: Myxosporea), the causative agent of whirling disease in the definitive host Tubifex tubifex, is native to Eurasia and has spread to more than 25 states in the USA. The small amounts of data available to date suggest that M. cerebralis has little genetic variability. We examined the genetic variability of parasites infecting the definitive host T. tubifex in the Madison River, MT, and also from …