Content area
Full Text
MICROBIOLOGY
WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS-More than a year after controversy erupted over whether a microbe called Pfiesteria has caused massive fish kills on the U.S. East Coast, questions about the research have deepened. The lab that tagged Pfiesteria as a potent fish killer faces ongoing skepticism in part because it has declined to share its "toxic" cultures with critics. And one lab that did receive cultures has failed to confirm that Pfiesteria has an unusually complex life cycle that includes an amoeboid form.
At a meeting here last month,* researchers heard some good news, however: Two rival groups began discussing plans to figure out together why only one of them has found evidence that Pfiesteria produces a fishkilling toxin.
Researchers say the collegial tone was a breakthrough in a field that has been riven by disputes about the work of Pfiesteria expert JoAnn Burkholder, who with North Carolina State University colleague Howard Glasgow first linked the dinoflagellate to fish kills. The same meeting 3 years ago was so contentious that some scientists walked out, says organizer Don Anderson. "The atmosphere was much better"...