[Coral-List] Coral disease? Which one?

James M. Cervino (Marine Biologist) cnidaria at earthlink.net
Thu Jun 22 09:29:32 EDT 2006


Dear Jeff,

I saw this same pathology in the Bahamas (Guana Key) during Sept-Jan 2005-06 a research trip. This seems like a line of yellow bacterial colonies slowly growing on the surface enjoying the mucus layer on the top of the tissue. The tissue is smothered and is not a zooxanthellae infection due to the yellow microbial mat residing on the surfaces of the Porites it is effecting in the Bahamas.  Janie McClanahan, my research assistant, has images of this pathology that is killing Porites and I will have her post these tomorrow to see if anyone else has seen this.  

James


>  I checked the web for what disease might be causing this die-off and it seems like some kind of "white" disease (White Plague was the closest I could determine).
>   
>  A few questions:
>   
>  1. How do we determine the exact nature of this die-off?
>  2. If it is a "white" disease of some sort, how "contagious" is this disease to other coral colonies? 
>  3. How worried should we be about this occurrance? Will be pandemic?
>  4. Is there anything we can do to prevent its spread? Assuming worse case scenrio of a "pandemic".
>   
>  Th

I believe in compulsory cannibalism. 
If people were forced to eat what they killed, 
there would be no more wars. 
Abbie Hoffman 



More information about the Coral-List mailing list