1.   By eating a single tubifex worm, a trout can be infected by thousands of spores.

2.   The parasite begins life as a spore that takes up residence in the tiny, ubiquitious tubifex worm.

3.   The tubifex worm, a relative of the earthworm that is a critical staging point in the whirling disease cycle, increases exponentially in polluted waters.

4.   There is little research on the distribution of the tubifex worm in Eastern streams, including in the critically important headwater streams of native brook trout.

5.   Tubifex worms, in turn, ingest the released spores, completing the cycle.