Tissue mortality by Caribbean ciliate infection and white band disease in three reef-building coral species

Caribbean ciliate infection (CCI) and white band disease (WBD) are diseases that affect a multitude of coral hosts and are associated with rapid rates of tissue losses, thus contributing to declining coral cover in Caribbean reefs. In this study we compared tissue mortality rates associated to CCI i...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Verde, Alejandra (Author), Croquer, Aldo (Author), Bastidas, Ana Carolina (Contributor)
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sea Grant College Program (Contributor)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: PeerJ Inc., 2017-03-31T16:10:05Z.
Subjects:
Online Access:Get fulltext
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100 1 0 |a Verde, Alejandra  |e author 
100 1 0 |a Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sea Grant College Program  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Bastidas, Ana Carolina  |e contributor 
700 1 0 |a Croquer, Aldo  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Bastidas, Ana Carolina  |e author 
245 0 0 |a Tissue mortality by Caribbean ciliate infection and white band disease in three reef-building coral species 
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856 |z Get fulltext  |u http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107800 
520 |a Caribbean ciliate infection (CCI) and white band disease (WBD) are diseases that affect a multitude of coral hosts and are associated with rapid rates of tissue losses, thus contributing to declining coral cover in Caribbean reefs. In this study we compared tissue mortality rates associated to CCI in three species of corals with different growth forms: Orbicella faveolata (massive-boulder), O. annularis (massive-columnar) and Acropora cervicornis (branching). We also compared mortality rates in colonies of A. cervicornis bearing WBD and CCI. The study was conducted at two locations in Los Roques Archipelago National Park between April 2012 and March 2013. In A. cervicornis, the rate of tissue loss was similar between WBD (0.8 ± 1 mm/day, mean ± SD) and CCI (0.7 ± 0.9 mm/day). However, mortality rate by CCI in A. cervicornis was faster than in the massive species O. faveolata (0.5 ± 0.6 mm/day) and O. annularis (0.3 ± 0.3 mm/day). Tissue regeneration was at least fifteen times slower than the mortality rates for both diseases regardless of coral species. This is the first study providing coral tissue mortality and regeneration rates associated to CCI in colonies with massive morphologies, and it highlights the risks of further cover losses of the three most important reef-building species in the Caribbean. 
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