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.
Read more at Cornell University
Image: While healthy coral is shown above, the researchers linked a coral killer like infectious disease to repeated warming bouts over four decades of change. CREDIT: Drew Harvell/Cornell University
