scholarly journals Failure to respond to a coral disease epizootic in Florida: causes and consequences

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1-47
Author(s):  
William Precht
Keyword(s):  
Coral Reefs ◽  
Coral Disease ◽  
Monitoring Program ◽  
The United States ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
Tissue Loss ◽  
Coral Tissue ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Compliance Monitoring

Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) was first observed in September 2014 near Virginia Key, Florida. In roughly six years, the disease spread throughout Florida and into the greater Caribbean basin. The high prevalence of SCTLD and high resulting mortality in coral populations, and the large number of susceptible species affected, suggest that this outbreak is one of the most lethal ever recorded. The initial recognition and management response to this catastrophic disease in Florida was slow, which delayed the start of monitoring programs and prevented coordinated research programs by at least two years. The slow management response was a result of several factors that operated concurrently. First, the Port Miami dredging project was ongoing during the coral disease epidemic and dredging rather than SCTLD was blamed by some managers and local environmental groups for the extreme coral losses reported in the project’s compliance monitoring program. Second, this blame was amplified in the media because dredging projects are intuitively assumed to be bad for coral reefs. Third, during this same time State of Florida policy prohibited government employees to acknowledge global warming in their work. This was problematic because ocean warming is a proximal cause of many coral diseases. As a result, the well-known links between warming and coral disease were ignored. A consequence of this policy was that the dredging project provided an easy target to blame for the coral mortality noted in the monitoring program, despite convincing data that suggested otherwise. Specifically, results from the intensive compliance monitoring program, conducted by trained scientific divers, were clear. SCTLD that was killing massive numbers of corals throughout Florida was also killing corals at the dredge site – and in the same proportions and among the same suite of species. While eradication of the disease was never a possibility, early control measures may have slowed its spread or allowed for the rescue of significant numbers of large colonies of iconic species. This coral disease outbreak has similarities to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and there are lessons learned from both that will improve disease response outcomes in the future, to the benefit of coral reefs and human populations.

scholarly journals Detecting sedimentation impacts to coral reefs resulting from dredging the Port of Miami, Florida USA

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret W Miller ◽  
Jocelyn Karazsia ◽  
Carolyn E Groves ◽  
Sean Griffin ◽  
Tom Moore ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Coral Reef ◽  
Coral Reefs ◽  
Coral Disease ◽  
Sediment Accumulation ◽  
Biological Response ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Tissue Loss ◽  
Coral Tissue ◽  
Live Coral ◽  
Monitoring Methods

The federal channel at Port of Miami, Florida, USA, was dredged between late 2013 and early 2015, to widen and deepen the channel. While the precise effects of the dredging on surrounding coral reefs are not well quantified, previously published remote sensing analyses, as well as agency and anecdotal reports suggest the most severe and largest area of sedimentation occurred on a coral reef feature referred to as the Inner Reef, particularly in the sector north of the channel. A regional warm-water mass bleaching event followed by a coral disease outbreak during this same time frame confounded the assessment of dredging-related impacts to coral reefs adjacent to the federal channel. In-water field assessments conducted after the completion of dredging and a time series analysis of tagged corals photographed pre-, during, and post-dredging, are used to discern dredging-related sedimentation impacts for the Inner Reef north. Results indicate increased sediment accumulation, severe in certain times and places, and an associated biological response, including significantly greater proportion of live coral tissue loss, occurred within coral reef sites located closer to the channel. Dredging projects near valuable and sensitive habitats subject to local and global stressors require monitoring methods capable of discerning non-dredging related impacts and adaptive management to ensure predicted and unpredicted project-related impacts are quantified. Anticipated increasing frequency and intensity of warming stress also suggests that manageable- but- unavoidable local stressors such as dredging should be partitioned from the warmest times of year.

scholarly journals Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease biomarker bacteria identified in corals and overlying waters using a rapid field-based sequencing approach

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia C. Becker ◽  
Marilyn Brandt ◽  
Carolyn A. Miller ◽  
Amy Apprill
Keyword(s):  
Coral Disease ◽  
The United States ◽  
Virgin Islands ◽  
Tissue Loss ◽  
Coral Tissue ◽  
Rna Sequences ◽  
Disease Biomarker ◽  
Stony Coral ◽  
Ribosomal Rna Sequences ◽  
Reef Tract

AbstractStony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) is a devastating disease. Since 2014, it has spread along the entire Florida Reef Tract, presumably via a water-borne vector, and into the greater Caribbean. It was first detected in the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) in January 2019. To more quickly identify disease biomarker microbes, we developed a rapid pipeline for microbiome sequencing. Over a span of 10 days we collected, processed, and sequenced coral tissue and near-coral seawater microbiomes from diseased and apparently healthy Colpophyllia natans, Montastraea cavernosa, Meandrina meandrites and Orbicella franksi. Analysis of the resulting bacterial and archaeal 16S ribosomal RNA sequences revealed 25 biomarker amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) enriched in diseased tissue. These biomarker ASVs were additionally recovered in near-coral seawater (within 5 cm of coral surface), a potential recruitment zone for pathogens. Phylogenetic analysis of the biomarker ASVs belonging to Vibrio, Arcobacter, Rhizobiaceae, and Rhodobacteraceae revealed relatedness to other coral disease-associated bacteria and lineages novel to corals. Additionally, four ASVs (Algicola, Cohaesibacter, Thalassobius and Vibrio) were exact sequence matches to microbes previously associated with SCTLD. This work represents the first rapid coral disease sequencing effort and identifies biomarkers of SCTLD that could be targets for future SCTLD research.

scholarly journals Failure to respond to a coral disease outbreak: Potential costs and consequences

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F Precht
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Coral Disease ◽  
Genetic Material ◽  
Monitoring Program ◽  
Initial Response ◽  
Disease Outbreak ◽  
Tissue Loss ◽  
Coral Tissue ◽  
Resource Managers

A coral disease with white plague-like signs was observed near Virginia Key, Florida, in September 2014. The disease outbreak directly followed a regional high temperature coral-bleaching event. Now called stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), it has spread the length of the Florida Reef Tract from Key West to Martin County, a distance of about 450 km. Recently, the disease has also been observed at a number of sites throughout the Caribbean. The high prevalence of disease, the number of susceptible species, and the high mortality of corals affected suggests this outbreak is arguably one of the most lethal ever recorded. The initial response to this catastrophic disease by resource mangers with purview over the ecosystem was slow. There is generally a very short window of opportunity to intervene in disease amelioration or eradication in the marine environment. This slow response enabled the disease to spread unchecked. Why was the response to the loss of our coral reefs to a coral disease epidemic, such a massive failure? This includes our failure as scientists, regulators, resource managers, the local media, and policy makers alike. This review encapsulates the numerous reasons for our failures during the first few years of the outbreak. Specifically, I show how the Port Miami dredging project that was ongoing at the time of the initial outbreak created a distraction as local NGO's, regulatory agencies, and resource managers initially blamed the project for observed large-scale coral losses. However, detailed analysis of 650 tagged corals that were part of a repeated measures monitoring program required for permit compliance associated with the Port Miami dredge project reveal that both disease susceptibility and coral mortality are invariant with the results collected by a number of scientific teams throughout the region. Finally, when the agencies responded to the outbreak the effort it was too little and much too late to make a meaningful difference. Because of the languid management response to this outbreak, we are now sadly faced with a situation where much of our management efforts are focused on the rescue of genetic material from coral species now at risk of regional extinction.

scholarly journals Failure to respond to a coral disease outbreak: Potential costs and consequences

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F Precht
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Coral Disease ◽  
Genetic Material ◽  
Monitoring Program ◽  
Initial Response ◽  
Disease Outbreak ◽  
Tissue Loss ◽  
Coral Tissue ◽  
Resource Managers

A coral disease with white-plague like signs was observed near Virginia Key, Florida, in September 2014. The disease outbreak directly followed a regional high temperature coral-bleaching event. Now called stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), it has spread the length of the Florida Reef Tract from Key West to Martin County, a distance of about 450 km. Recently, the disease has also been observed at a number of sites throughout the Caribbean. The high prevalence of disease, the number of susceptible species, and the high mortality of corals affected suggests this outbreak is arguably one of the most lethal ever recorded. The initial response to this catastrophic disease by resource mangers with purview over the ecosystem was slow. There is generally a very short window of opportunity to intervene in disease amelioration or eradication in the marine environment. This slow response enabled the disease to spread unchecked. Why was the response to the loss of our coral reefs to a coral disease epidemic, such a massive failure? This includes our failure as scientists, regulators, resource managers, the local media, and policy makers alike. This review encapsulates the numerous reasons for our failures during the first few years of the outbreak. Specifically, I show how the Port Miami dredging project that was ongoing at the time of the initial outbreak created a distraction as local NGO's, regulatory agencies, and resource managers initially blamed the project for observed large-scale coral losses. However, detailed analysis of 650 tagged corals that were part of a repeated measures monitoring program required for permit compliance associated with the Port Miami dredge project reveal that both disease susceptibility and coral mortality are invariant with the results collected by a number of scientific teams throughout the region. Finally, when the agencies responded to the outbreak the effort it was too little and much too late to make a meaningful difference. Because of the languid management response to this outbreak, we are now sadly faced with a situation where much of our management efforts are focused on the rescue of genetic material from coral species now at risk of regional extinction.

scholarly journals Detecting sedimentation impacts to coral reefs resulting from dredging the Port of Miami, Florida USA

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret W Miller ◽  
Jocelyn Karazsia ◽  
Carolyn E Groves ◽  
Sean Griffin ◽  
Tom Moore ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Coral Reef ◽  
Coral Reefs ◽  
Coral Disease ◽  
Sediment Accumulation ◽  
Biological Response ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Tissue Loss ◽  
Coral Tissue ◽  
Live Coral ◽  
Monitoring Methods

The federal channel at Port of Miami, Florida, USA, was dredged between late 2013 and early 2015, to widen and deepen the channel. While the precise effects of the dredging on surrounding coral reefs are not well quantified, previously published remote sensing analyses, as well as agency and anecdotal reports suggest the most severe and largest area of sedimentation occurred on a coral reef feature referred to as the Inner Reef, particularly in the sector north of the channel. A regional warm-water mass bleaching event followed by a coral disease outbreak during this same time frame confounded the assessment of dredging-related impacts to coral reefs adjacent to the federal channel. In-water field assessments conducted after the completion of dredging and a time series analysis of tagged corals photographed pre-, during, and post-dredging, are used to discern dredging-related sedimentation impacts for the Inner Reef north. Results indicate increased sediment accumulation, severe in certain times and places, and an associated biological response, including significantly greater proportion of live coral tissue loss, occurred within coral reef sites located closer to the channel. Dredging projects near valuable and sensitive habitats subject to local and global stressors require monitoring methods capable of discerning non-dredging related impacts and adaptive management to ensure predicted and unpredicted project-related impacts are quantified. Anticipated increasing frequency and intensity of warming stress also suggests that manageable- but- unavoidable local stressors such as dredging should be partitioned from the warmest times of year.

scholarly journals Failure to respond to a coral disease outbreak: Potential costs and consequences

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F Precht
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Coral Disease ◽  
Genetic Material ◽  
Monitoring Program ◽  
Initial Response ◽  
Disease Outbreak ◽  
Tissue Loss ◽  
Coral Tissue ◽  
Resource Managers

A coral disease with white plague-like signs was observed near Virginia Key, Florida, in September 2014. The disease outbreak directly followed a regional high temperature coral-bleaching event. Now called stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), it has spread the length of the Florida Reef Tract from Key West to Martin County, a distance of about 450 km. Recently, the disease has also been observed at a number of sites throughout the Caribbean. The high prevalence of disease, the number of susceptible species, and the high mortality of corals affected suggests this outbreak is arguably one of the most lethal ever recorded. The initial response to this catastrophic disease by resource mangers with purview over the ecosystem was slow. There is generally a very short window of opportunity to intervene in disease amelioration or eradication in the marine environment. This slow response enabled the disease to spread unchecked. Why was the response to the loss of our coral reefs to a coral disease epidemic, such a massive failure? This includes our failure as scientists, regulators, resource managers, the local media, and policy makers alike. This review encapsulates the numerous reasons for our failures during the first few years of the outbreak. Specifically, I show how the Port Miami dredging project that was ongoing at the time of the initial outbreak created a distraction as local NGO's, regulatory agencies, and resource managers initially blamed the project for observed large-scale coral losses. However, detailed analysis of 650 tagged corals that were part of a repeated measures monitoring program required for permit compliance associated with the Port Miami dredge project reveal that both disease susceptibility and coral mortality are invariant with the results collected by a number of scientific teams throughout the region. Finally, when the agencies responded to the outbreak the effort it was too little and much too late to make a meaningful difference. Because of the languid management response to this outbreak, we are now sadly faced with a situation where much of our management efforts are focused on the rescue of genetic material from coral species now at risk of regional extinction.

scholarly journals Pengamatan Laju Penyakit White Syndrome Pada Montipora sp. Di Pulau Pramuka, Taman Nasional Laut Kepulauan Seribu, DKI Jakarta

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Abdur Rosyid ◽  
Oktiyas Muzaky Luthfi
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Coral Disease ◽  
Tissue Loss ◽  
Coral Tissue ◽  
Progression Rate ◽  
White Syndrome ◽  
Coral Surface ◽  
Pathogenic Vibrio ◽  
Imagej Software ◽  
Main Factor

Coral disease now became main factor of coral degradation in the world. There is still a few report about coral disease in Kepulauan Seribu Marine National Park (TNKPS) include of white syndrome (WS) in Montipora sp. WS was characterized by white area on coral surface at several stages. WS had caused coral tissue loss and leaved bare CaCO3 skeleton that was caused by pathogenic Vibrio coralliitycus associated with other microorganisms. In this study the progress of WS calculated by measurement of the distances of WS that moved from diseased to healty coral surface. All calculations was performed used ImageJ Software. Our result showed that WS progression rate in first week was 9.06 cm2 and the second week was 2.37 cm2. Total coral tissue mortality was 12.03% for 2 weeks.

scholarly journals 3D Photogrammetry Reveals Dynamics of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) Lesion Progression Across a Thermal Stress Event

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonora Meiling ◽  
Erinn M. Muller ◽  
Tyler B. Smith ◽  
Marilyn E. Brandt
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Stress ◽  
Disease Ecology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tissue Loss ◽  
Coral Tissue ◽  
Critical Parameters ◽  
Bleaching Event ◽  
Stony Coral ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Loss Rates

Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) was first observed in the United States Virgin Islands in January 2019 on a reef at Flat Cay off the island of St. Thomas. A year after its emergence, the disease had spread to several reefs around St. Thomas causing significant declines in overall coral cover. Rates of tissue loss are an important metric in the study of coral disease ecology, as they can inform many aspects of etiology such as disease susceptibility and resistance among species, and provide critical parameters for modeling the effects of disease among heterogenous reef communities. The present study quantified tissue loss rates attributed to SCTLD among six abundant reef building species (Colpophyllia natans, Montastraea cavernosa, Diploria labyrinthiformis, Pseudodiploria strigosa, Orbicella annularis, and Porites astreoides). Field-based 3D models of diseased corals, taken approximately weekly, indicated that the absolute rates of tissue loss from SCTLD slowed through time, corresponding with the accumulation of thermal stress that led to mass bleaching. Absolute tissue loss rates were comparable among species prior to the bleaching event but diverged during and remained different after the bleaching event. Proportional tissue loss rates did not vary among species or through time, but there was considerable variability among M. cavernosa colonies. SCTLD poses a significant threat to reefs across the Caribbean due to its persistence through time, wide range of susceptible coral species, and unprecedented tissue loss rates. Intervention and management efforts should be increased during and immediately following thermal stress events in order maximize resource distribution when disease prevalence is decreased.

scholarly journals Intra-colony disease progression induces fragmentation of coral fluorescent pigments

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie M. Caldwell ◽  
Blake Ushijima ◽  
Courtney S. Couch ◽  
Ruth D. Gates
Keyword(s):  
Laser Scanning ◽  
Coral Disease ◽  
Laser Scanning Confocal Microscopy ◽  
Tissue Loss ◽  
Coral Tissue ◽  
Health State ◽  
Scanning Confocal Microscopy ◽  
Non Invasive ◽  
Coral Health ◽  
Healthy Coral

Abstract As disease spreads through living coral, it can induce changes in the distribution of coral’s naturally fluorescent pigments, making fluorescence a potentially powerful non-invasive intrinsic marker of coral disease. Here, we show the usefulness of live-imaging laser scanning confocal microscopy to investigate coral health state. We demonstrate that the Hawaiian coral Montipora capitata consistently emits cyan and red fluorescence across a depth gradient in reef habitats, but the micro-scale spatial distribution of those pigments differ between healthy coral and coral affected by a tissue loss disease. Naturally diseased and laboratory infected coral systematically exhibited fragmented fluorescent pigments adjacent to the disease front as indicated by several measures of landscape structure (e.g., number of patches) relative to healthy coral. Histology results supported these findings. Pigment fragmentation indicates a disruption in coral tissue that likely impedes translocation of energy within a colony. The area of fragmented fluorescent pigments in diseased coral extended 3.03 mm ± 1.80 mm adjacent to the disease front, indicating pathogenesis was highly localized rather than systemic. Our study demonstrates that coral fluorescence can be used as a proxy for coral health state, and, such patterns may help refine hypotheses about modes of pathogenesis.

scholarly journals Coupled Epidemio-Hydrodynamic Modeling to Understand the Spread of a Deadly Coral Disease in Florida

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Dobbelaere ◽  
Erinn M. Muller ◽  
Lewis J. Gramer ◽  
Daniel M. Holstein ◽  
Emmanuel Hanert
Keyword(s):  
Causative Agent ◽  
Coral Disease ◽  
Propagation Speed ◽  
Tissue Loss ◽  
Coral Tissue ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Dade County ◽  
Coral Mucus ◽  
Disease Threshold ◽  
Neutrally Buoyant

For the last six years, the Florida Reef Tract (FRT) has been experiencing an outbreak of the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD). First reported off the coast of Miami-Dade County in 2014, the SCTLD has since spread throughout the entire FRT with the exception of the Dry Tortugas. However, the causative agent for this outbreak is currently unknown. Here we show how a high-resolution bio-physical model coupled with a modified patch Susceptible-Infectious-Removed epidemic model can characterize the potential causative agent(s) of the disease and its vector. In the present study, the agent is assumed to be transported within composite material (e.g., coral mucus, dying tissues, and/or resuspended sediments) driven by currents and potentially persisting in the water column for extended periods of time. In this framework, our simulations suggest that the SCTLD is likely to be propagated within neutrally buoyant material driven by mean barotropic currents. Calibration of our model parameters with field data shows that corals are diseased within a mean transmission time of 6.45 days, with a basic reproduction number slightly above 1. Furthermore, the propagation speed of the disease through the FRT is shown to occur for a well-defined range of values of a disease threshold, defined as the fraction of diseased corals that causes an exponential growth of the disease in the reef site. Our results present a new connectivity-based approach to understand the spread of the SCTLD through the FRT. Such a method can provide a valuable complement to field observations and lab experiments to support the management of the epidemic as well as the identification of its causative agent.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document