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DISEASES OF CORALS: RESEARCH PROGRESS, REEF PROSPECTS
Citation:
Peters, E. C. AND D L. Santavy. DISEASES OF CORALS: RESEARCH PROGRESS, REEF PROSPECTS. Presented at American Fisheries Society 2001 Annual Meeting, Phoenix, AZ, August 19-31, 2001.
Description:
Scleractinian corals have been the subject of intensive research during the past few decades to improve understanding of their role in supporting diverse tropical and subtropical marine communities and to examine factors responsible for their decline and loss of community biodiversity. The relative contributions of parasites or pathogens and adverse environmental conditions to coral decline have been difficult to characterize. Some diseases, such as black-band disease, occur on reefs world-wide; others, such as Porites ulcerative white-spot syndrome are reported from specific locales, like the Philippines. The Caribbean Sea has been affected particularly by diseases and syndromes that cause loss of coral tissue. A continuing quantitiative study of the frequency of 10 coral diseases on reefs from Key Biscayne to the Dry Tortugas, Florida, illustrates some of the difficulties in assessing coral diseases by season, reef habitat, and geographic region. Morbidity and mortality of other reef organisms have also been reported with greater frequency in recent years, suggesting that members of the reef ecosystem are becoming more susceptible to pathogens. Long-term multi-disciplinary studies will help answer the basic questions about the etiology of diseases, but controlling disease outbreaks in the ocean presents the ultimate challenge.