A coral disease outbreak that wiped out nearly 80% of stony corals between Florida’s Key Biscayne and Key West during the past two years appears to have spread to the U.S. Virgin Islands (U.S.V.I.), where reefs that were once vibrant and teeming with life are now left skeleton white in the disease’s wake.
A coral disease outbreak that wiped out nearly 80% of stony corals between Florida’s Key Biscayne and Key West during the past two years appears to have spread to the U.S. Virgin Islands (U.S.V.I.), where reefs that were once vibrant and teeming with life are now left skeleton white in the disease’s wake.
The fast-spreading disease—believed to be Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD)—has marine scientists scrambling to understand what’s causing the outbreak and how or if it can be contained.
“The disease is affecting a variety of reef-building coral species—many of them long-lived—and appears to be spreading from reef-to-reef throughout southwestern St. Thomas,” said Amy Apprill a marine ecologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. “It’s the worst multi-species coral disease we’ve ever seen in the Caribbean, and most of the corals that get it die.”
Rapid response
St. Thomas and the other U.S. Virgin Islands depend on corals for tourism and food, and to buffer coastlines from storms. With funding from a Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant through the National Science Foundation, Apprill, along with colleagues from the University of the Virgin Islands, Rice University, Louisiana State University, University of Texas at Arlington, and Mote Marine Laboratory, are conducting a task-force style investigation to learn more about the disease’s pathology, how it may be spreading through the ocean, and how coral immune systems are responding to it. The researchers are also trying to determine if the outbreak can be stopped before it completely decimates reef ecosystems throughout the region.
Read more at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
