Coral disease outbreak in the Florida Keys: Plague Type II

Richardson, L.; Goldberg, W.; Carlton, R.; Halas, J.

Study relating coral mortality outbreaks with disease. Also looks into the spread of the disease. A coral disease characterized by a novel pattern of rapid tissue destruction first appeared on reefs of the middle Florida Keys in June 1995. Between June and October 1995 the disease infected 17 species of scleractinian corals and the hydrocoral Millepora alcicornis. Localized populations of Dichocoenia stolcesi, the species most affected, revealed up to 38% mortality. Many colonies exhibited complete tissue loss within days as the disease moved across colonies ar rates of up to 2 em per 24 hr. Typically tissue loss was initiated at the base of the colony and moved upward, At times disease progression halted and colonies retained partial tissue resembling a cap on the top of an otherwise denuded colony. Laboratory cultures of samples from the disease line revealed a dominant bacterium that, when isolated and characterized using genetic and metabolic techniques, most closely _marched the genus Sphingomonas. Pure laboratory cultures of the bacterium produced disease in freshly collected coral colonies incubated in laboratory aquaria The disease that we call plague type II ippearcd on different reefs of south Florida and the Florida Keys in 1996 and 1997. While coral mortality associated with each of the three outbreaks was regionally confined and did not recur in subsequent years on the same reefs, the high mortality rates distinguish this disease as one of the most serious yet documented.

Coral disease outbreak in the Florida Keys: Plague Type II

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