First report of Perkinsus beihaiensis in wild clams Anomalocardia brasiliana (Bivalvia: Veneridae) in Brazil
Introduction
Located on the coast of Ceará, 300 km northwest of Fortaleza (Northeastern Brazil), the Timonha river estuary is home to a number of bivalves of commercial interest, including the mangrove oyster Crassostrea rhizophorae, the mussel species Mytella falcata and Mordella guyanensis and the clam species Anomalocardia brasiliana, locally known as “búzio”. These bivalves are of socioeconomic and ecological importance as a source of food and income for local communities.
Little has been published on diseases affecting bivalves in estuaries in Ceará. In fact, to our knowledge, only one Brazilian study is available on parasitic infection in A. brasiliana, involving the metazoon Bucephalus sp. (Trematoda: Bucephalidae). The infected specimens came from the estuary of the Jaguaribe River, 100 km southeast of Fortaleza (Araújo and Rocha-Barreira, 2004).
Parasitic protozoa of the genus Perkinsus are known for infecting marine mollusks worldwide, mainly bivalves (Villalba et al., 2004, Choi and Park, 2010). Only two of seven accepted species, P. olseni and P. marinus, have been associated with significant mortality in wild and farmed populations of mollusks, requiring notification to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE, 2012).
In Brazil, Perkinsus sp. was first recorded in C. rhizophorae from the estuary of the Pacoti River, 7 km southeast of Fortaleza (Sabry et al., 2009). When submitted to DNA sequencing, the specimens from the Pacoti River presented high molecular similarity to Perkinsus beihaiensis which infects oysters in China (Moss et al., 2008) and India (Sanil et al., 2012). The similarity was confirmed in later studies by Sabry et al. (2013). Perkinsus sp. has also been found infecting the same oyster species in two important estuaries (Marau and Graciosa) along the coast of Bahia, Brazil (Brandão et al., 2013).
Recently, da Silva et al. (2013) published the first Brazilian report of P. marinus. The species was found in C. rhizophorae from the Paraiba River estuary (Northeastern Brazil). Considering the risk posed by this parasite, continuous monitoring of Perkinsus in wild and farmed bivalve populations along the Brazilian coast is highly advisable.
This is the first report of Perkinsus sp. infecting wild clams of the species Anomalocardia brasiliana in Brazil.
Section snippets
Àrea de sampling of animals
Specimens (n = 150) of the clam species A. brasiliana (shell length: 17–20 mm) were sampled in March 2012 in the estuary of the Timonha river (03°00′55.8″ S, 041°15′09.8″ W), in the northwestern corner of Ceará, Brazil (Fig. 1). The mangrove of Timonha’s River has an area of 5011 km2, it being the major and more conserved mangrove area of the Ceará State. In the region, predominates the semi-arid climate, with average temperature of 28 °C, average year precipitation of approximately 1300 mm and
Results and discussion
This is the first report of Perkinsus sp. in the clam species A. brasiliana in Brazil. Following incubation in RFTM, Perkinsus sp. was identified in samples of gill lamellae and rectum of A. brasiliana. The cells of the parasite were spherical in shape and stained bluish black in Lugol’s iodine (Fig. 2A). The prevalence of Perkinsus sp. in clams was 14.7% (22/150) and the intensity ranged from very light (n = 18) to light (n = 4). The prevalence of Perkinsus sp. was higher in this bivalve
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank MCT/CNPq/MAP/SDA for financial support and LABOMAR/UFC (Institute of Marine Sciences), CNPq – Brazil (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) and CAPES – Brazil (Brazilian Government Program for Continuing Higher Education) for M.Sc. and Ph.D. scholarships.
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