Baby corals are just as susceptible as adults to a deadly disease that has been spreading across Florida’s reefs since 2014, according to a new study led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
Baby corals are just as susceptible as adults to a deadly disease that has been spreading across Florida’s reefs since 2014, according to a new study led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. The findings showed that stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) infects baby corals with similar severity and mortality that we see in adult colonies. This is the first study to show the impacts of any coral disease on baby corals.
“Since baby corals have not been included in surveys of the disease on Florida’s reefs, we have likely underestimated the extent of mortality caused by this disease,” said the study’s lead author Olivia (Liv) Williamson, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Marine Biology and Ecology at the UM Rosenstiel School. “That’s like trying to understand how COVID-19 spreads through a population by examining only adults, without looking at whether and how the disease affects children”.
To conduct the study, the scientists exposed lab-raised juveniles of two species of brain corals, four-month-old boulder brain coral (Colpophyllia natans) and eight-month-old grooved brain coral (Diploria labyrinthiformis), to water containing colonies with active SCTLD for four weeks. Both species began to develop lesions within 48 hours after exposure.
Read more at: University of Miami
Healthy, eight month old baby brain corals being raised in the Coral Reef Futures lab at the Rosenstiel School. (Photo Credit: Liv Williamson, Ph.D.)
