Studies on rickettsia-like organism (RLO) disease of tropical marine pearl oyster-Epidemiological investigation of RLO disease in juvenile populations of maricultured Pinctada maxima

The death which occurred in juvenile population was a severe problem in the course ofPinctada maxima artificial culture. With the methods of field investigation, histological study and statistic analyses, the epidemiological study was carried out on the disease and death in juvenile populations of Pinctada maxima in the Xinying Pearl Oyster Mariculture Farm of Lingao County (for the A, B and C batches of cultured juveniles hanged in the sea) and the Xincun Pearl Oyster Mariculture Farm of Lingshui County (for the D batch of cultured juvenile hanged in the pond), Hainan Province from November 1993 to April 1995.
The results show that the deaths which occurred in juvenile populations of Pinctada maxima presented an outbreak pattern. The peak of mortality rates, in general, occurred in 4-to 6-month old pearl oyster juveniles, and the mortality rates gradully declined with the extention of pearl oyster age after cul-turing 8 months. The correlation between the mortality rates of juvenile populations and mean bodylengths of juvenile populations show that the mortality rate become higher under 4 cm of mean bodylengths of juvenile population and become obvious declined over 5 cm of mean body lengths. The peak ofmortality rate occurred in 1~3 cm of mean body lengths. The results of histological observation showedthat rickettsia-like organism inclusions were common, histological widespread infective agent among ev-ery batches (A, B, C and D) of cultured juvenile populations. The mean severity indices (SI) of rick-ettsia-like organism (RLO) infection were positively correlated with mortality rates of juvenile populations. After or within every peaks of RLO infection were all accompanied with the peaks of mortalityrates of host populations and the mortality rates declined with decreased RLO infection. So the evidencesof histological observation and epidemiology in this study indicated that rickettsia-like organism (RLO)may be as an important pathogenic organism of disease and death of cultured Pinctada maxima. In addition, a few ciliates were discovered only in part of batch A of cultured juvenile population. The mortalityrates in juvenile populations were not correlated with the weekly mean temperature and salinity of seawater.