Abstract
Caribbean reef corals have experienced unprecedented declines from climate change, anthropogenic stressors and infectious diseases in recent decades. Since 2014, a highly lethal, new disease, called stony coral tissue loss disease, has impacted many reef-coral species in Florida. During the summer of 2018, we noticed an anomalously high disease prevalence affecting different coral species in the northern portion of the Mexican Caribbean. We assessed the severity of this outbreak in 2018/2019 using the AGRRA coral protocol to survey 82 reef sites across the Mexican Caribbean. Then, using a subset of 14 sites, we detailed information from before the outbreak (2016/2017) to explore the consequences of the disease on the condition and composition of coral communities. Our findings show that the disease outbreak has already spread across the entire region by affecting similar species (with similar disease patterns) to those previously described for Florida. However, we observed a great variability in prevalence and tissue mortality that was not attributable to any geographical gradient. Using long-term data, we determined that there is no evidence of such high coral disease prevalence anywhere in the region before 2018, which suggests that the entire Mexican Caribbean was afflicted by the disease within a few months. The analysis of sites that contained pre-outbreak information showed that this event considerably increased coral mortality and severely changed the structure of coral communities in the region. Given the high prevalence and lethality of this disease, and the high number of susceptible species, we encourage reef researchers, managers and stakeholders across the Western Atlantic to accord it the highest priority for the near future.
Highlights
Over the past four decades, coral reefs have experienced declines in condition and function, which has been attributed to coral disease, overfishing and herbivore loss, eutrophication, sedimentation, and climate change (Jackson et al, 2014; Hughes et al, 2017)
In the decade of the 1980s, Diadema antillarum virtually vanished from the region in the span of only two years due to a non-identified disease outbreak that reduced the populations of this important herbivore and bioeroder in Caribbean reefs (Lessios et al, 1984)
To provide a clearer picture of the magnitude of the problem, we focused on exploring geographical and temporal trends for the 11 most ‘highly susceptible species’, which we defined as those that presented more than 10% of stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) prevalence across all surveyed sites (Fig. 2; Table S2)
Summary
Over the past four decades, coral reefs have experienced declines in condition and function, which has been attributed to coral disease, overfishing and herbivore loss, eutrophication, sedimentation, and climate change (Jackson et al, 2014; Hughes et al, 2017). Less evident in the literature, multiple events of white-plague disease outbreaks during the last decades have substantially decimated the populations of a range of species (Weil, 2004; Harvell, 2007; Precht et al, 2016). Due to the fact that the most severely impacted coral species are major reef-building corals, disease outbreaks in the Caribbean have largely contributed to the substantial changes in spatial heterogeneity and ecological functionality of Caribbean reefs, along with their capacity to provide important ecosystem services to humans (Alvarez-Filip et al, 2009; Aronson & Precht, 2001; Weil, 2004). In the decade of the 1980s, Diadema antillarum virtually vanished from the region in the span of only two years due to a non-identified disease outbreak that reduced the populations of this important herbivore and bioeroder in Caribbean reefs (Lessios et al, 1984)
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