Genetic and phenotypic diversity of Flavobacterium psychrophilum isolates from Czech salmonid fish farms

Abstract

The salmonid pathogen Flavobacterium psychrophilum poses a significant economic threat to global aquaculture, yet our understanding of its genetic and phenotypic diversity remains incomplete across much of its geographic range. In this study, we characterise the genetic and phenotypic diversity of 70 isolates collected from rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and brown trout (Salmo trutta m. fario) from fish farms in the Czech Republic between 2012 and 2019 to compare their genomic content with all draft or complete genomes present in the NCBI database (n=187).The salmonid pathogen Flavobacterium psychrophilum poses a significant economic threat to global aquaculture, yet our understanding of its genetic and phenotypic diversity remains incomplete across much of its geographic range. In this study, we characterise the genetic and phenotypic diversity of 70 isolates collected from rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and brown trout (Salmo trutta m. fario) from fish farms in the Czech Republic between 2012 and 2019 to compare their genomic content with all draft or complete genomes present in the NCBI database (n=187).