MANAGEMENT OF CORAL DISEASES

[Andy Bruckner]

Dear Coral List Readers,

NOAA Fisheries has published a NOAA Technical Memorandum on coral
diseases entitled “Priorities for Effective Management of Coral
Diseases”.  This paper was originally developed as a white paper was for
the Coral Disease and Health Consortium workshop held in Charleston last
January, and it is also available as a PDF file on the new CHAMP coral
disease website (http://www.coral.noaa.gov/coral_disease).

The paper summarizes much of the available information on coral disease
epizootiology, including a compilation of all disease names that have
appeared in the literature, information on the distribution and
prevalence of the major coral diseases affecting  Western Atlantic coral
reefs, rates of tissue loss reported for these coral diseases and
monitoring approaches that have been used to study disease
epizootiology.

The paper is divided into two sections: 1) Key priorities for effective
management;  and 2) proposed strategies to address management needs for
coral diseases.  Each of these sections is broken down into seven major
themes:

1) Early warning systems
2) The spatial distribution and temporal variations of coral disease
outbreaks
3) Relationships with environmental factors, anthropogenic stresses and
natural disturbances
4) Standardized nomenclature to describe, identify and differentiate
diseases
5) Factors that facilitate the occurrence, spread and transmission of
pathogens
6) Effects on population dynamics, community structure and ecosystem
function
7) Measures to mitigate disease impacts

Anyone that is interested in receiving a hard copy of the paper please
contact :

Andy Bruckner
NOAA/NMFS
Office of Protected Resources
1315 East West Highway
Silver Spring, MD 20910
andy.bruckner at noaa.gov

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