USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center: Research on Fish and Aquatic Animal Health

A blue catfish. Photograph by Christine Densmore, U.S. Geological Survey.

What the center does

The U.S. Geological Survey's Eastern Ecological Science Center (EESC) helps protect the health of fish and aquatic animals and supports disease management for the nation's fisheries and aquatic animal populations. Its expertise spans biology, ecology and animal health.

• The science: its scientists identify new and emerging pathogens and diseases, and study how fish and aquatic animals respond to parasites, pathogens, harsh environmental conditions and chemical exposures — in labs, and in the field from headwater streams to the ocean.
• For managers: its science helps managers make hard decisions about aquatic species and their habitats, with information on native species, sportfish, invasive species and imperiled species in habitats under restoration or conservation.
• The tools: focused animal-health investigations, targeted disease biosurveillance, and decision-support tools and research methods that reduce disease risk and make management more certain.

The team provides science leadership and support to fisheries and aquatic species specialists nationwide.

Research areas

Focused research

• Biological threats: significant pathogens and diseases, and the effects of invasive species.
• Chemical contaminants: effects on endocrine, reproductive and immune responses, and long-lasting toxic chemicals, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
• Physical barriers to fish migration, and how natural and human-caused change affects the growth, reproduction and development of anadromous fish.
• Health and disease of imperiled species in relation to climate change or land use, including coral disease such as stony coral tissue loss disease.

Biosurveillance and monitoring

• Ongoing threats to the health of important U.S. fish and aquatic resources.
• Emerging threats, including new pathogens and diseases.
• Disease ecology, including the effects of physical, chemical and biological changes to aquatic habitats.

Disease decision science

• Field and laboratory investigations.
• Epidemiological modeling and advanced statistical analysis.
• Decision analysis for managing natural resources well.

Smallmouth bass gonads with an abnormality: both eggs (an oocyte) and sperm developing. Photograph by Vicki Blazer, U.S. Geological Survey.

Three research campuses

Leetown Research Laboratory (Kearneysville, West Virginia)

• labs for aquatic animal pathology, immunology and immunodiagnostic testing, and microscopy and imaging;
• a mass spectroscopy lab that can analyze contaminants, such as PFAS, in animal tissue;
• molecular and genetic tools — environmental DNA (eDNA) detection, next-generation sequencing and functional genomics — to identify emerging threats;
• aquatic labs to test how fish and aquatic animals respond and adapt to environmental stress and migration challenges, holding freshwater species at varying water temperatures;
• outdoor research ponds with adjustable flow;
• a Biosafety Level 3 biocontainment lab designed for holding and studying fish and aquatic animals.

Two scientists extracting plasma from a smallmouth bass. Photograph by Michael Eackles, U.S. Geological Survey.

S.O. Conte Research Laboratory (Turners Falls, Massachusetts)

• an outdoor rearing facility and indoor aquatic lab that control temperature, salinity and photoperiod for rearing many aquatic species;
• an endocrinology and protein chemistry lab measuring hormones, their receptors, and the proteins involved in adjusting to salinity and temperature;
• a graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometer for measuring ions and heavy metals;
• a large facility for testing hydraulic structures and devices, with three major flumes carrying as much as 350 cubic feet per second.

A scientist using a swim tunnel respirometer. Photograph by Andrea Miehls, U.S. Geological Survey.

Patuxent Research Refuge (Laurel, Maryland)

• physiology and ecotoxicology labs, including blood chemistry measurements;
• molecular and biochemical labs for genomics, transcriptomics, the microbiome, and immune, endocrine and stress biomarker analysis;
• bioinformatics;
• environmental chambers for amphibian and invertebrate physiology and toxicology studies.

A researcher using an imaging flow cytometer to capture smallmouth bass immune function data. Photograph by Christine Densmore, U.S. Geological Survey.

A coral reef in the Florida Keys, where a brain coral was infected with stony coral tissue loss disease. Photograph by Ilsa Kuffner, U.S. Geological Survey.

Sources

Based on U.S. Geological Survey, "Eastern Ecological Science Center—Fish and Aquatic Animal Health," Fact Sheet 2022–3073, August 2022, USGS; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The photographs are restored from the fact sheet's PDF; two credited to West Virginia University and Penn State University are not reproduced.