The health of Earth’s oceans is rapidly worsening, and newly published Cornell-led research has examined changes in reported diseases across undersea species at a global scale over a 44-year period.
The health of Earth’s oceans is rapidly worsening, and newly published Cornell-led research has examined changes in reported diseases across undersea species at a global scale over a 44-year period.
The findings, published Oct. 9 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, show that long-term changes in diseases coincide with recent decades of widespread environmental change.
Understanding oceanic trends is important for evaluating today’s threats to marine systems, and disease is an important sentinel of change, according to senior author Drew Harvell, professor of marine biology in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. The researchers examined marine infectious disease reports from 1970 to 2013, which transcend short-term fluctuations and regional variation.
“Disease increases and decreases can both be bad news,” said lead author Allison Tracy, Ph.D. ’19, who studied with Harvell. “The long-term changes in disease that we see here may result from anthropogenic pressures on plants and animals in the ocean.”
Read more at Cornell University
Image: As global warming increases disease, healthy corals, pictured here, are at greater risk for ecological impacts. (Credit: Drew Harvell/Cornell University)
