Blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) produce byssal threads to anchor themselves to the substrate. These threads are always exposed to the surrounding environmental conditions. Understanding how environmental pH affects these threads is crucial in understanding how climate change can affect mussels. This work examines three factors (load at failure, thread extensibility, and total thread counts) that indicate the performance of byssal threads as well as condition index to assess impacts on the physiological condition of mussels held in artificial seawater acidified by the addition of CO2. There was no significant variation between the control (~786 μatm CO2 / ~7.98 pH/ ~2805 μmol kg-1 total alkalinity) and acidified (~2555 μatm CO2 / ~7.47 pH/ ~2650 μmol kg-1 total alkalinity) treatment groups in any of these factors. The results of this study suggest that ocean acidification by CO2 addition has no significant effect on the quality and performance of threads produced by M. edulis.

Piscirickettsia salmonis is a facultative, intracellular pathogen which is the causative agent of piscirickettsiosis in several fresh and saltwater fish species. The disease has caused significant economic losses particularly to Chilean aquaculture. Isolation and growth of the pathogen is generally carried out in cell culture, however alternative media have been published for growth in liquid and agar culture. We investigate the growth of P. salmonis in three defined artificial media through optical density, cell counts, and a P. salmonis-specific TaqMan assay. Despite previous indications that iron was essential for in vitro growth, iron restriction was achieved and induced protein variations between mediums upon 1D and 2D PAGE-gel electrophoresis analysis. Furthermore, we analyze the immune response in Atlantic salmon to P. salmonis using immune serum. These protein differences could indicate how intracellular pathogens grow in different in vitro systems and provide additional insight for future vaccine development.