USGS Researchers Conduct Collaborative Experiment to Identify Causative Agent of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD)
SPCMSC Research scientists Christina Kellogg and James Evans are working with Valerie Paul, director of the Smithsonian Marine Station in Ft. Pierce, Florida, to conduct an experiment to determine if SCTLD is caused by a pathogenic microbe and if so, which kind.
An outbreak of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) has been causing high mortality in roughly half of Florida’s 45 stony coral species, including key reef building species and five species listed in the Endangered Species Act. This disease is impacting nearly the entire Florida reef tract and is spreading throughout the Caribbean. This USGS-designed experiment will concentrate the microbial community in mesocosm water from diseased corals, use physical filters of different sizes to separate the microbial community into different-sized taxonomic groups (e.g., protists, bacteria, viruses) and apply those filters to healthy coral fragments in a laboratory setting to determine which size triggers SCTLD symptoms. Findings from this study can potentially help determine the cause of this devastating coral disease and inform the development of solutions to halt its spread.
Related Content
Coral Reef Ecosystem Studies (CREST)
Related Content
- Science
Coral Reef Ecosystem Studies (CREST)
The specific objectives of this project are to identify and describe the processes that are important in determining rates of coral-reef construction. How quickly the skeletons of calcifying organisms accumulate to form massive barrier-reef structure is determined by processes of both construction (how fast organisms grow and reproduce) and destruction (how fast reefs break down by mechanical... - News
- Partners
Get Our News
These items are in the RSS feed format (Really Simple Syndication) based on categories such as topics, locations, and more. You can install and RSS reader browser extension, software, or use a third-party service to receive immediate news updates depending on the feed that you have added. If you click the feed links below, they may look strange because they are simply XML code. An RSS reader can easily read this code and push out a notification to you when something new is posted to our site.