May

8

2007
 
 

Coral wreaths



Warmer seas and coral cover combine to spread disease, study finds

All white? Not quiteWhite syndrome, a devastating coral disease, is stretching over the Australian Great Barrier Reef (GBR). And writing in PLoS Biology this week, an international team of marine ecologists, led by John Bruno at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, point to the main factors that influence the disease’s spread: unusually warm sea surface temperatures and the availability of corals to infect. The scientists used a six-year data set of satellite-inferred sea temperatures — at 48 reefs along almost 1500 km of the GBR — to spot a link with coral dieoffs. High temperatures alone weren’t enough to trigger an outbreak: coral cover had to be high too, usually greater than 50%. But the combination of factors might, just might, offer coral reefs a lifeline in the face of climate change. Stressed corals – those suffering temperature-induced bleaching, for example – could fall below the 50% coverage threshold needed to make them susceptible to white syndrome. Desperate? Well, when you’re drowning even a straw looks like a lifebelt. Source: Bruno JF, Selig ER, Casey KS, Page CA, Willis BL, Harvell CD, Sweatman H & Melendy AM (2007) Thermal stress and coral cover as drivers of coral disease outbreaks. PLoS Biology DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0050124

Related story in Conservation magazine: A Nugget of Hope for Coral Reefs

Image © Australian Institute of Marine Science Long-term Monitoring Program

Filed Under Climate change, Restoration, Marine, Monitoring | 

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