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A chance conversation over coffee has led to James Cook University student Renate Kvingedal capturing images of a previously unknown parasite that affects mud crabs.
"I was having coffee with a friend and she was telling me about a problem she was having with her PhD research involving mud crabs," said Renate.
"She had found something weird growing on the eggs of one of her females and didn't know what it was. After she showed me a couple of doodles on a napkin I asked her if I could take a look."
At the time the 27-year-old from Norway was studying infection in the hepatopancreas of the red claw crayfish as part of her undergraduate major in aquaculture at JCU.
"I was just intrigued as to what this weird thing might be, so I took the crab and her infected eggs and did some histology on them," she said. "What I found was quite a fascinating little bug, somewhere between fungus and animal, which effects 100 per cent mortality.
"Three months later the same parasite was identified on a batch of separate eggs and it snowballed from there really."
Images from Renate's paper examining the new parasitic infection that could have a huge impact on the world's aquaculture industry were chosen for the front cover of the September issue of the Journal of Invertebrate Pathology.
Under the tutelage of Associate Professor Leigh Owens from JCU's School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences and Dr Dean R Jerry from the School of Marine Biology and Aquaculture Renate produced a paper featuring images worthy of the Journal's front page.
"Renate showed great tenacity in tracking down the causative agent when experts had not seen anything like it before. These are the skills that make an excellent investigative researcher," Associate Professor Owens said.
Renate wrote the paper in her spare time while undertaking a Bachelor of Applied Science at JCU.
"I decided to write up my findings because, not only is this a new parasite, there is a lot of interest in mud crab aquaculture in Australia and I wanted to make people aware of something that could be a big problem for the industry," she said.
"It is the first paper I have had published so it's very exciting."
Now a Masters student, Renate has set her sights on the genetics of the Silver-lipped Pearl Oyster (Pinctada maxima) found across the Indo-Pacific in hopes of creating a selective breeding program for oyster farmers.
Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.
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