Global Advance of Shrimp Virus Follows Evolutionary Biology Predictions

ScienceDaily (Nov. 2, 2010) — White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) has a devastating impact on shrimp farming throughout the world. What makes the situation even more serious is that the virus seems to become more aggressive as the epidemic spreads, contrary to other viruses, such as flu virus, that gradually die out. Scientists from Wageningen University, part of Wageningen UR, reconstructed the genetic and geographical trajectory of the shrimp virus from the putative ancestral source, and discovered that the fitness of the virus increases over time and the genome shrinks, in a pattern similar to theoretical predictions from evolutionary biology.

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