[Coral-List] Is mass coral bleaching caused by bacteria like Vibrio?

[Longin Kaczmarsky]

Dear Ove,
    I read your paper and a thought crossed my mind...thinking about the mode of pathogenicity employed by V. cholerae in humans whereby the bacteria only inhabit the mucus, never actually penetrating the tissue, and release their toxins which cause the host symptoms I wondered if perhaps a similar behavior might occur on corals and this infective population is being lost during processing (i.e., during fixation and decalcification) and the "penetration" observed earlier was just a secondary effect due to incidental weak points in the coral tissue. Perhaps an assay to detect the presence of Vibrio toxin would be revealing as to their presence/role. Just a thought.
      Lonnie Kaczmarsky> Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:58:18 +1000> From: oveh at uq.edu.au> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> Subject: [Coral-List] Is mass coral bleaching caused by bacteria like Vibrio?> > Dear List,> > > > Tracy Ainsworth, Maoz Fine, Jez Roff and I have just published a study> which examines whether or not the bacterium Vibrio shiloi causes> bleaching of the Mediterranean coral, Oculina patigonica. Given that we> show that bleaching occurs in O. patigonica without the presence, and> hence involvement, of Vibrio, we believe that there is no longer any> support for the bacterial bleaching hypothesis. Maybe you disagree. We> have opened discussions of this issue at http://www.climateshifts.org.> Drop by and join into the discussions.> > > > Regards,> > > > Ove> > > > Ove Hoegh-Guldberg> > ARC Centre for Excellence: www.coralcoe.org.au> > Coral Reef Targeted Research Project: www.gefcoral.org> > Web: http://www.marine.uq.edu.au/MAPSLAB/> > Blog: http://www.climateshifts.org> > > > > > _______________________________________________> Coral-List mailing list> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list