[Coral-List] White-Plague Disease in Southeast Florida

William Precht william.precht at gmail.com
Sat Aug 27 14:09:24 EDT 2016


Following the publication of the manuscript - Unprecedented disease-related
coral mortality in southeastern Florida in *Scientific Reports *
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep31374  I have received a number of
emails from people on the Coral List asking about the current status on the
disease and whether additional studies are being performed.

The good news is that in Miami-Dade County the disease has essentially run
its course and presently, white-plague disease prevalence county-wide is
<5%. Recently, however, there have been a number of distressing
observations both north and south of the area covered in our study.  The
disease has actively moved through Broward, Palm Beach and Martin County's
to the north and there have been observations of significant outbreaks on
reefs within the FKNMS off Key Largo and Islamorada in Monroe County to the
south.  The Florida Bleach Watch program is currently monitoring the
disease and its impacts and there are a number of researchers from local
institutions and resource agencies that are currently engaged in studying
the ecology and etiology of this devastating disease outbreak.

Bill


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