Etiology of gas bubble disease
Gas bubble disease is a noninfectious, physically induced process caused by uncompensated hyperbaric pressure of total dissolved gases. When pressure compensation is inadequate, dissolved gases may form emboli (in blood) and emphysema (in tissues). The resulting abnormal physical presence of gases can block blood vessels (hemostasis) or tear tissues, and may result in death. Population mortality is generally skewed, in that the median time to death occurs well before the average time to death. Judged from mortality curves, three stages occur in gas bubble disease: (1) a period of gas pressure equilibrium, nonlethal cavitation, and increasing morbidity; (2) a period of rapid and heavy mortality; and (3) a period of protracted survival, despite lesions, and dysfunction that eventually terminates in total mortality. Safe limits for gas supersaturation depend on species tolerance and on factors that differ among hatcheries and rivers, between continuous and intermittent exposures, and across ranges of temperature and salinity.
- Research Organization:
- Fish and Wildlife Service, Seattle, WA
- OSTI ID:
- 6642479
- Journal Information:
- Trans. Am. Fish. Soc.; (United States), Vol. 109:6
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
FISHES
SENSITIVITY
GAS BUBBLE DISEASE
ETIOLOGY
AIR
AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS
ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE
BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS
EMBOLI
EMPHYSEMA
FRESH WATER
MORTALITY
POPULATIONS
SOLUBILITY
SUPERSATURATION
SURVIVAL CURVES
TOLERANCE
ANIMALS
AQUATIC ORGANISMS
DISEASES
ECOSYSTEMS
FLUIDS
GASES
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
RESPIRATORY SYSTEM DISEASES
SATURATION
VASCULAR DISEASES
VERTEBRATES
WATER
560204* - Thermal Effects- Invertebrates- (-1987)
550900 - Pathology
560400 - Other Environmental Pollutant Effects