WHITE Band on the Rise!

[Richard B. Aronson]

In response to recent messages regarding the incidence of various coral 
diseases:

The question of whether coral disease outbreaks have increased in 
frequency in recent years is of obvious importance to reef scientists and 
managers.  Bill Precht, Ian Macintyre and I are coring reefs in the 
central shelf lagoon in Belize in search of evidence of white band 
disease outbreaks preceding the the one that devastated Acropora 
populations in Belize in the late 1980s.  From our evidence it appears that 
the recent epizootic was a unique event on a time scale of millennia.  


Some of this work is described in a paper that will be published this fall:

Aronson, R. B. and W. F. Precht.  1997.  Stasis, biological disturbance, 
and community structure of a Holocene coral reef.  Paleobiology 23:326-346.


Cheers,

Rich Aronson


______________________________________________________________________________
Richard B. Aronson
Dauphin Island Sea Lab
P. O. Box 369-370
Dauphin Island, AL 36528

Voice: (334) 861-7567
Fax: (334) 861-7540
email: raronson at jaguar1.usouthal.edu