Survey of Black Band Disease-affected scleractinian corals via drone-based observations in Okinawa, Japan

Abstract

Diseases are a growing global threat to scleractinian corals. This study used a relatively inexpensive commercial drone flown simultaneously along with reef walking/snorkeling to confirm the presence of cyanobacterial Black Band Disease (BBD) on a reef in subtropical Okinawa, Japan. At the surveyed reef, the scleractinian corals included encrusting forms (12.57% ± 5.72 coverage), followed by massive/submassive (6.09% ± 4.05) and tabular corals (2.66% ± 1.19). Our survey is unique in that drone research has not been previously applied to BBD surveys, followed by ground truthing. Thus, this study can be regarded as an example of using drones during coral disease assessments.