This amendment provides $225,000 from the general fund each year to support science-based guidance on the management of existing and emerging disease threats to critical fishery and aquaculture resources in the Commonwealth and Chesapeake Bay region. VIMS would leverage existing expertise by establishing and effectively communicating state and regional response protocols, identifying and liaising with key groups to serve as a clearinghouse for information to policymakers, and developing numerical models that forecast disease outbreaks and incorporate the resulting mortality into fisheries management models to support improved fisheries management.