Evaluation of the Genetic Diversity of Flavobacterium Psychrophilum from Various Origins

For a number of reasons, population numbers of some Pacific salmon species have declined dramatically over recent years and a large part of the restoration effort encompasses hatchery propagation of progeny from returning fish for subsequent planting into their natural waters.

With hatchery rearing operations fish are maintained in high densities and this situation lends itself to disease problems. One such disease is bacterial cold water disease, caused by the Gram negative bacterium Flavobacterium psychrophilum. Source of the infection is the ubiquitous nature of the pathogen and because of the verticle transmissability.