Modes of coral disease transmission: how do diseases spread between individuals and among populations?

Shore, Amanda; Caldwell, Jamie M.

doi:10.1007/s00227-019-3490-8

Cited by 44 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 128 publications

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“…Transmission, or the spread of disease among individuals, is a key factor in understanding the epidemiology and ecology of infectious diseases (Shore & Caldwell, 2019). Although the data for this study was not collected in a way that allowed us to quantitatively explore how the disease is transmitted between colonies, it is important to mention that we did not observe evidence that suggests a single potential mechanism of disease transmission.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A rapid spread of the stony coral tissue loss disease outbreak in the Mexican Caribbean

Álvarez‐Filip

Estrada‐Saldívar

Pérez‐Cervantes

et al. 2019

PeerJ

139

142

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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.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A rapid spread of the stony coral tissue loss disease outbreak in the Mexican Caribbean

Álvarez‐Filip

Estrada‐Saldívar

Pérez‐Cervantes

et al. 2019

PeerJ

139

142

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…water-borne transmission is an important spreading mechanism for multiple coral diseases, including white band disease, white plague disease, white pox disease, white syndrome disease, Porites ulcerative white spots diseases, and skeletal eroding band disease (Shore and Caldwell, 2019). These results suggest that coral mucus or sloughed off diseased coral tissue may directly transmit SCTLD if they remain suspended within mean currents.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Coupled Epidemio-Hydrodynamic Modeling to Understand the Spread of a Deadly Coral Disease in Florida

et al. 2020

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For the last six years, the Florida Reef Tract (FRT) has been experiencing an outbreak of the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD). First reported off the coast of Miami-Dade County in 2014, the SCTLD has since spread throughout the entire FRT with the exception of the Dry Tortugas. However, the causative agent for this outbreak is currently unknown. Here we show how a high-resolution bio-physical model coupled with a modified patch Susceptible-Infectious-Removed epidemic model can characterize the potential causative agent(s) of the disease and its vector. In the present study, the agent is assumed to be transported within composite material (e.g., coral mucus, dying tissues, and/or resuspended sediments) driven by currents and potentially persisting in the water column for extended periods of time. In this framework, our simulations suggest that the SCTLD is likely to be propagated within neutrally buoyant material driven by mean barotropic currents. Calibration of our model parameters with field data shows that corals are diseased within a mean transmission time of 6.45 days, with a basic reproduction number slightly above 1. Furthermore, the propagation speed of the disease through the FRT is shown to occur for a well-defined range of values of a disease threshold, defined as the fraction of diseased corals that causes an exponential growth of the disease in the reef site. Our results present a new connectivity-based approach to understand the spread of the SCTLD through the FRT. Such a method can provide a valuable complement to field observations and lab experiments to support the management of the epidemic as well as the identification of its causative agent.

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“…Disease can play a major role in structuring marine ecosystems and has been recognized as a driving force behind declines in reef-building corals worldwide leading to cascading effects throughout these ecosystems [ 1 , 2 ]. Extensive effort has been directed at assessing the pathology, etiology, epizoology of specific diseases [ 3 ] and understanding the mode of transmission of these diseases, which may be spread through a water-borne or vector-borne pathogen, via direct contact, or most often, a combination of these modes [ 4 – 6 ], and is particularly vital to inform the development of management strategies to mitigate the effects of epizootics [ 7 ]. However, assessing the potential modes of disease transmission can often prove challenging due to the complex etiologies of different coral diseases [ 8 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the small-scale epidemiology of the stony-coral -tissue-loss-disease in the middle Florida Keys

et al. 2020

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Along the Florida reef tract, stony-coral-tissue-loss disease (SCTLD) has caused extensive mortality of more than 20 scleractinian coral species. The pathogen is unknown, but its epizoology indicates that the disease, facilitated by water currents, has progressed linearly along the tract, affecting reefs at the scale of hundreds of kilometers. To inform ongoing disease mitigation efforts, we examined the small-scale spatial and temporal epidemiology of SCTLD. We established a series of sites in the middle Florida Keys at offshore and inshore locations that had not yet shown signs of SCTLD. We then conducted high-frequency monitoring from February 2018 through September 2019 and documented the onset of SCTLD and its progression through the sites. SCTLD was first observed at one site during early February 2018 and by early March 2018 all sites showed signs of the disease. A dynamic multistate model suggested that disease transmission was independent of coral density and found little evidence of a positive association between a colony showing signs of SCTLD and the condition or distance to its neighboring colonies. The model did, however, indicate that the probability of a colony showing signs of SCTLD increased with increasing colony surface area. These results are consistent with the water-borne transmission of a pathogen that progressed rapidly through the survey area. However, by the end of our survey the progression of SCTLD had slowed, particularly at inshore sites. Many affected colonies no longer exhibited progressive tissue mortality typical of the disease, suggesting the existence of differentially resilient colonies or coral communities, meriting their use for future coral rescue and propagation and disease research. These results are useful for refining ongoing SCTLD mitigation strategies, particularly by determining when disease rates are sufficiently low for direct intervention efforts designed to arrest disease progression on individual coral colonies will be most effective.

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Modes of coral disease transmission: how do diseases spread between individuals and among populations?

Cited by 44 publications

References 128 publications

A rapid spread of the stony coral tissue loss disease outbreak in the Mexican Caribbean

A rapid spread of the stony coral tissue loss disease outbreak in the Mexican Caribbean

Coupled Epidemio-Hydrodynamic Modeling to Understand the Spread of a Deadly Coral Disease in Florida

Evaluating the small-scale epidemiology of the stony-coral -tissue-loss-disease in the middle Florida Keys

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