The eelgrass wasting disease is caused by the pathogenic organism Labyrinthula zosterae. In this formulation, the growth dynamics of the pathogen were defined in competition with eelgrass such that excessive growth of the pathogen under stressful conditions for the eelgrass would result in an outbreak of disease and potential eelgrass decline. For the eelgrass disease interaction model, the impacts of the pathogen on eelgrass were simulated for the Great Bay Estuary, and the rates of eelgrass decline were compared to rates observed in our long-term monitoring of eelgrass populations in Great Bay (Short 1992, Burdick et al. 1993, Macloed and Congalton in press). This model was used to calculate the effects of the pathogen on eelgrass under different salinity conditions within the estuary (view output).
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Disease at the Shoot Level