[Coral-List] SCTLD on Bonaire

[Judith Lang]

Hi Mel,

Most of those pillars in this photo are alive but the polyps are very contracted except at their tips. Strangely, that behaviour was being noticed in Curacao last month in an area and the dive operators were concerned it meant they are now getting SCTLD.  I’d like to share this with coral histologist coral disease specialist Esther Peters, and ask her if that’s what she saw last month and was talking with the local divers. On the whole, coral diseases are getting more and more confusing to understand!

Judy



> On 6 Sep 2023, at 16:58, Melbourne Briscoe <mel at briscoe.com> wrote:
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> Thank you Judith and Roxanne. I apologize for being so casual about what the color codes mean, but when the various colored sit4s look so similar, the details of the colofs seem less important.
> Today I visited Rappel; it was almost pristine, except for the pillars! They appeared to be almost dead except for the tips. Is this characteristic of SCTLD or something else.
> <image.png>
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> On Wed, Sep 6, 2023 at 11:17 AM STINAPA Monitoring <monitoring at stinapa.org <mailto:monitoring at stinapa.org>> wrote:
>> Hi Mel,
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>> Judy is correct, green is disease free, 2 is disease is present, and 3 is disease is affecting multiple species and we are already seeing mortality. Now there can be quite a bit of overlap between sites as 1) we have over a 100 divesites on Bonaire so monitoring all of them all the time is not feasible and 2) we update the map once every other week.
>> Maze and boulder brains are being hit the hardest so far here on Bonaire. But unfortunately it seems the rest of the brain corals are not far behind. 
>> We have also seen pillars affected by SCTLD but it seems they take a bit longer to start showing symptoms. At the first outbreak sites the pillars didn’t get hit until 4-5 months into the outbreak. We are also hopeful that some of the pillars will be spared and are keeping an extra close eye on those as well.
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>> Saludos,
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>> From: Judith Lang <jlang at riposi.net <mailto:jlang at riposi.net>> 
>> Sent: Wednesday, September 6, 2023 8:16 AM
>> To: Melbourne Briscoe <mel at briscoe.com <mailto:mel at briscoe.com>>
>> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] SCTLD on Bonaire
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>> Hi Mel,
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>> 1. The difference between STINAPA’s 1, 2, 3 may relate more to how long the site has shown signs of infection.
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>> 2. Yes
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>> 3. Yes, at least so far,  and this is a big difference between the behaviour of the disease in Florida and when it originally invaded the Caribbean. Don’t know what that means, but now that SCTLD's also in Curacao, we can hope its huge stand of pillar corals will be spared.
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>> All best,
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>> Judy 
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>> Judith C Lang
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>> www.agrra.org <http://www.agrra.org/>
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>> On 5 Sep 2023, at 17:51, Melbourne Briscoe via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>> wrote:
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>> I've been here 9 days so far and have three observations about SCTLD on
>> Bonaire:
>> (1) Sites are categorized by the local marine park authority (STINAPA) as
>> Green, Orange, or Red, meaning clean, caution, and infected. I have dived
>> numerous sites so far of all three colors, some 2 or 3 times.There is very
>> little visible difference between the sites....they all look alike in so
>> far as SCTLD-like issues.
>> (2) Maze seems he hardest hit.
>> (3) I have seen perhaps 10 small stands of pillar...and *none *show any
>> signs of disease of any kind.
>> 
>> - Mel
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>> 
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