[Coral-List] Barrier reef bleaching

Mon Mar 28 07:30:40 EDT 2016

Doug......perhaps a reason why a similar event hasn't been reported in the
Atlantic is that no one has undertaken a similar campaign.....also there is
the issue of microbial strains...take E.coli as an example..numerous
strains, of which only some are pathogenic...which is a good thing since
all of us harbor this species in our guts.......so to ID a strain in a dust
sample and find that it is not pathogenic means simply that you did not
find a pathogenic strain.....to assume that this means African dust can't
be a vector based on your observation is short sighted......

"Everybody is ignorant, just on different subjects"
                                           Will Rogers

Dale W. Griffin, Ph.D., MSPH, MCSS, MCLES, MCOL
Environmental/Public Health Microbiologist
United States Geological Survey
600 4th Street South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
Office # - 727-502-8075
Fax # - 727-502-8001
Cell # 850-274-3566
email - dgriffin at usgs.gov

email - dale.w.griffin at gmail.com

<http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dale_Griffin/>

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dale_Griffin

https://profile.usgs.gov/professional/mypage.php?rfs=y&name=dgriffin

On Sun, Mar 27, 2016 at 1:15 AM, Douglas Fenner <
douglasfennertassi at gmail.com> wrote:

> On this subject, another paper's abstract includes these statements:
>
> "Surprisingly, no human health or marine ecosystem impacts were associated
> with this Australian dust storm event."  "While we have not yet seen any
> soft coral disease outbreaks on the Australian Great Barrier Reef similar
> to those observed in the Caribbean and while this particular fungal
> population was non- or weakly pathogenic, our observations raise the
> possibility of future marine ecosystem pathogen impacts from similar dust
> storms harboring more pathogenic strains."
>
> The discussion includes the statements that:
>
> "The present report of fungal spore masses in Australian coastal waters
> following a dust storm is unprecedented."  " There has not been a similar
> event reported by the North Atlantic CPR survey (20 to 60°N) over the past
> 70 years, the U.S. CPR survey in the Northwest Atlantic (over the past 30
> years), the Southern Ocean survey over the past 20 years, or the North
> Pacific survey over the past decade."
>
> and
>
>  "This initial work claimed A. sydowii to be the main causative agent of a
> widespread outbreak of sea fan disease in the Caribbean, and increased
> influx of African dust was proposed as the source of the coral mortality
> (17). Subsequent physiological and toxicological work suggested that the
> strains in African dust and as sea fan pathogens were distinct, hence
> raising the possibility that African dust was not the source of the
> pathogen, although the dust still could have played a nutrient enrichment
> role to allow fungal pathogen proliferation (18, 19)."
>
> Pretty amazing event in Australia, though.
>
> Hallegraeff, G., et al.  2014.  Australian dust storm associated with
> extensive *Aspergillus syndowii* fungal "bloom" in coastal waters.  Applied
> and Environmental Microbiology 80(11): 3315-3320.
>
> Cheers,  Doug
>
> On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 11:17 AM, Douglas Fenner <
> douglasfennertassi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >    This article is available open-access.
> > http://www.mdpi.com/1660-3397/14/3/59/htm
> >
> >    I note that the dust storm in question occurred in 2009.  Thus it
> seems
> > unlikely to be the cause of the current bleaching event on the Great
> > Barrier Reef.
> >
> >     Cheers,  Doug
> >
> > <#m_-759127735706507214_DDB4FAA8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 5:22 AM, Eugene Shinn <eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> I was just made aware of the following paper. Here is the abstract.
> >> Remember Aspergillus Sydowii in African dust has been implicated in
> >> widespread Caribbean seafan disease. Gene
> >>
> >> Abstract: Dust has been widely recognised as an important source of
> >> nutrients in the marine environment and as a vector for transporting
> >> pathogenic microorganisms. Disturbingly, in the wake of a dust storm
> >> event along the eastern Australian coast line in 2009, the Continuous
> >> Plankton Recorder collected masses of fungal spores and mycelia
> >> (~150,000 spores/m3) forming a floating raft that covered a coastal area
> >> equivalent to 25 times the surface of England. Cultured A. sydowii
> >> strains exhibited varying metabolite profiles, but all produced sydonic
> >> acid, a chemotaxonomic marker for A. sydowii. The Australian marine
> >> fungal strains share major metabolites and display comparable metabolic
> >> diversity to Australian terrestrial strains and to strains pathogenic to
> >> Caribbean coral. Secondary colonisation of the rafts by other fungi,
> >> including strains of Cladosporium, Penicillium and other Aspergillus
> >> species with distinct secondary metabolite profiles, was also
> >> encountered. Our bioassays revealed that the dust-derived marine fungal
> >> extracts and known A. sydowii metabolites such as sydowic acid,
> >> sydowinol and sydowinin A adversely affect photophysiological
> >> performance (Fv/Fm) of the coral reef dinoflagellate endosymbiont
> >> Symbiodinium. Different Symbiodinium clades exhibited varying
> >> sensitivities, mimicking sensitivity to coral bleaching phenomena. The
> >> detection of such large amounts of A. sydowii following this dust storm
> >> event has potential implications for the health of coral environments
> >> such as the Great Barrier Reef.
> >>
> >> The article is published in Marine Druges
> >> Article
> >> Aspergillus Sydowii Marine Fungal Bloom in Australian Coastal Waters,
> >> Its Metabolites and Potential Impact on Symbiodinium Dinoflagellates
> >> Aiko Hayashi 1, Andrew Crombie 2, Ernest Lacey 2, Anthony J. Richardson
> >> 3,4, Daniel Vuong 2, Andrew M. Piggott 5 and Gustaaf Hallegraeff 1,*
> >> 1 2
> >> 3 4 5
> >> *
> >> Institute for Marine & Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania,
> >> Hobart, Tasmania 7004, Australia; aiko.hayashi at utas.edu.au Microbial
> >> Screening Technologies, Building A, 28-54 Percival Rd, Smithfield NSW
> >> 2164, Australia; acrombie at microbialscreening.com (A.C.);
> >> elacey at microbialscreening.com (E.L.); dvuong at microbialscreening.com
> >> (D.V.)
> >> CSIRO Marine & Atmospheric Research, Ecosciences Precinct, Brisbane,
> >> Queensland 4102, Australia; anthony.richardson at csiro.au Centre for
> >> Applications in Natural Resource Mathematics, School of Mathematics and
> >> Physics, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia
> >> Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences, Macquarie University,
> >> NSW 2109, Australia; andrew.piggott at mq.edu.au Correspondence:
> >> gustaaf.hallegraeff at utas.edu.au; Tel.: +61-3-6226-2623
> >> Academic Editors: Samuel Bertrand and Olivier Grovel Received: 9
> >> February 2016; Accepted: 3 March 2016; Published: 16 March 2016
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >>
> >> No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
> >> ------------------------------------ -----------------------------------
> >> E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
> >> University of South Florida
> >> College of Marine Science Room 221A
> >> 140 Seventh Avenue South
> >> St. Petersburg, FL 33701
> >> <eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu>
> >> Tel 727 553-1158
> >> ---------------------------------- -----------------------------------
> >>
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> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Douglas Fenner
> > Consultant, corals, coral reefs, coral identification
> > "have regulator, will travel"
> > PO Box 7390
> > Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
> >
> > phone 1 684 622-7084
> >
> > Join the International Society for Reef Studies.  Membership includes a
> > subscription to the journal Coral Reefs, and there are discounts for pdf
> > subscriptions and developing countries.  Check it out!
> www.fit.edu/isrs/
> >
> > "Belief in climate change is optional, participation is not."- Jim
> Beever..
> >   "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own
> facts."-
> > Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
> >
> > Record shattering February warmth bakes Alaska, Arctic 18oF
> >
> >
> >
> http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/03/13/3759569/record-february-warmth-alaska-arctic/
> >
> > Sea level is now rising at the fastest rate in 3,000 years.
> >
> >
> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/sea-levels-are-rising-their-fastest-rate-2000-years?utm_campaign=email-news-latest&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=292592
> >
> >
> http://mashable.com/2016/02/22/manmade-sea-level-rise-flooding/#fscPLGedCiqz
> >
> > Miami is flooding: "The Siege of Miami, as temperatures rise, so will sea
> > levels."  Sea level rising an inch a year there.
> > http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/21/the-siege-of-miami
> >
> > website:  http://independent.academia.edu/DouglasFenner
> >
> > blog: http://ocean.si.edu/blog/reefs-american-samoa-story-hope
> >
> >
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