Tissue mortality by Caribbean ciliate infection and white band disease in three reef-building coral species
Name
Tissue mortality.pdf
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11.27 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
562df425850cf0bbe9f432c32f9bf798
Author(s)
Verde, Alejandra
Croquer, Aldo
Bastidas, Ana Carolina
Date Issued
July 2016
Journal
PeerJ
Publisher
PeerJ Inc.
Citation
Verde, Alejandra, Carolina Bastidas, and Aldo Croquer. “Tissue Mortality by Caribbean Ciliate Infection and White Band Disease in Three Reef-Building Coral Species.” PeerJ 4 (2016): e2196.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Caribbean ciliate infection (CCI) and white band disease (WBD) are diseases that affect a multitude of coral hosts and are associated with rapid rates of tissue losses, thus contributing to declining coral cover in Caribbean reefs. In this study we compared tissue mortality rates associated to CCI in three species of corals with different growth forms: Orbicella faveolata (massive-boulder), O. annularis (massive-columnar) and Acropora cervicornis (branching). We also compared mortality rates in colonies of A. cervicornis bearing WBD and CCI. The study was conducted at two locations in Los Roques Archipelago National Park between April 2012 and March 2013. In A. cervicornis, the rate of tissue loss was similar between WBD (0.8 ± 1 mm/day, mean ± SD) and CCI (0.7 ± 0.9 mm/day). However, mortality rate by CCI in A. cervicornis was faster than in the massive species O. faveolata (0.5 ± 0.6 mm/day) and O. annularis (0.3 ± 0.3 mm/day). Tissue regeneration was at least fifteen times slower than the mortality rates for both diseases regardless of coral species. This is the first study providing coral tissue mortality and regeneration rates associated to CCI in colonies with massive morphologies, and it highlights the risks of further cover losses of the three most important reef-building species in the Caribbean.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sea Grant College Program
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2196
