Evidence of Coral Diseases, Phase Shift, and Stressors in the Atolls of Lakshadweep Islands, Arabian Sea—With Geographical Notes on Their Occurrence within the Indian EEZ and Contiguous International Waters

Abstract

Photographic evidence of some important coral diseases (black band disease, black disease/Terpios hoshinota, white syndrome, pink line syndrome, pink spots, invertebrate galls, skeletal growth anomalies, tissue loss), coral competing sponges, and coral–algal phase shifts (competitive overgrowth of the seaweed Caulerpa spp. over corals and competitive scleractinian interactions such as with Halimeda spp.) have been collected during field observations in a few atolls within the Lakshadweep archipelago, Arabian Sea. Further, earlier reports of similar diseases and other stressors within the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and its contiguous international waters, including the reefs of the Maldives and Sri Lanka, are highlighted and their distributional ranges are shown.