Very little is known about how environmental changes such as increasing temperature affect disease dynamics in the ocean, especially at large spatial scales. We asked whether the frequency of warm temperature anomalies is positively related to the frequency of coral disease across 1,500 km of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. We used a new high-resolution satellite dataset of ocean temperature and 6 y of coral disease and coral cover data from annual surveys of 48 reefs to answer this question. We found a highly significant relationship between the frequencies of warm temperature anomalies and of white syndrome, an emergent disease, or potentially, a group of diseases, of Pacific reef-building corals. The effect of temperature was highly dependent on coral cover because white syndrome outbreaks followed warm years, but only on high (>50%) cover reefs, suggesting an important role of host density as a threshold for outbreaks. Our results indicate that the frequency of temperature anomalies, which is predicted to increase in most tropical oceans, can increase the susceptibility of corals to disease, leading to outbreaks where corals are abundant.

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Listeria monocytogenes is a facultatively anaerobic short gram-positive rod-shaped bacterium that infects a wide range of animals, including ruminants, monogastric animals, birds, fish, rodents, and humans. 7 Infection with this obligate intracellular pathogen causes 3 distinct clinical entities, septicemia, encephalitis, and abortion, which rarely occur simultaneously in the same animal. The septicemic form affects the viscera with or without meningoencephalitis and is common in monogastric animals, whereas encephalitis and abortion occur principally in adult ruminants. Chinchillas are considered one of the species more susceptible to visceral listeriosis, 6,7,11 especially when reared in confinement. 6 Listeriosis in chinchillas has been described in many areas of the United States during a period (1949-1955) when chinchilla pelts were prized commodities in the fur industry. 9,11,12 More recently, chinchillas have become a widely used animal model for studies of noise-induced hearing loss. 4 An outbreak of disseminated visceral listeriosis occurred in a breeding colony of 130 chinchillas located in northern Idaho. The chinchillas in this operation were raised for pelts. Polygamous breeding was practiced; 1 male had access to 8 females. The feed, open sacks of commercially formulated chinchilla pellets and a bale of hay, was stored on a wood pallet. To promote maintenance of their hair coats, a dust bath pan was provided for the animals. During December 1995, there was an unusually large influx of mice into the chinchilla building, and on several occasions the owners noted mouse droppings in the feed. By January 1996, the colony experienced a 23% mortality (30 of 130) in breeding animals of various ages. Approximately 4 days prior to death, the animals were anorectic and hunched, and some had torticollis. Many animals were found dead without premonitory clinical signs. Four chinchillas (2 dead males, 1 dead female, 1 moribund female) were submitted to the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory for necropsy. All 4 chinchillas were emaciated and lacked subcutaneous and retroperitoneal fat. Consistent gross lesions in the 3 dead chinchillas included multifocal 0.1-0.3-cm-diameter whitetan foci affecting the capsular surfaces and parenchyma of the liver, mesenteric lymph nodes, and the serosa of the small and large intestines, particularly the cecum and colon. Individual differences in postmortem lesions are listed in Table 1. Animal A, a dead female, had a 2-cm rectal prolapse and colonic intussusception in addition to the visceral foci. The intussusception consisted of a 3-cm segment of dark red prox-From the

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