142 



Fishery Bulletin 98(1) 



B 



P 



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Figure 1 



Hemalodinium perezi from the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus. (A and B) Vermiform 

 Plasmodia (p) in hemolymph (granulocytes, star). Bar = 10 pm. (C) Amoeboid trophonts 

 (arrows) with few refractile granules. Bar = 10 pm. (D) Round trophonts (arrows) with 

 many refractile granules. Bar = 10 pm. 



lar densities and proportions of cell types were noted 

 in hematology and survival between the mortality-! 

 and mortality-II experiments; hence, data were com- 

 bined a posteriori for the analyses. Where similar 

 trends were noted between statistics for injection 

 dosage ( lO-^ vs. 10''), data were also combined for 

 the analysis (i.e. survivorship, hematology). SYSTAT 

 (Wilkinson, 1997) and SAS (SAS, 1988) were used 

 for the analyses. A probability level of P < 0.05 was 

 accepted as significant. 



Results 



Inoculated crabs that became infected with Hema- 

 todinium perezi began dying two weeks after inoc- 

 ulation (Fig. 2). Mortalities peaked at three weeks 

 after injection and continued to accumulate from 

 weeks 3 through 5. The mortality rate of the infected 

 crabs was 86%, whereas less than 20% of the con- 

 trols died. Crab mortalities were similar over the 

 time course of infection between mortality-I (infected 



