Coral colonies of the species Colpophyllia natans and Orbicella faveolata preserved in the Experimental Reef Laboratory fish tank systems. These corals were rescued from a seawall collapse at Star Island in July 2022 and will be used to support research and repair efforts. Credit: Joshua Prezant
These brand-new findings may supply a basis for establishing techniques to prevent the additional spread of the disease.
According to a current research study carried out by scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, ships might be contributing to the spread of a fatal coral disease called stony coral tissue loss illness (SCTLD) throughout Florida and the Caribbean.
This illness, which was very first discovered near Miami in 2014, has now affected reef in Jamaica, St. Maarten, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Belize, amongst other areas. The findings of this research study might help researchers to establish testing and treatment methods that can minimize the danger of more disease transmission.
Researchers recommend that transport through ship hulls, where the vessel handles ballast water in one region to keep it steady and launches it at a different port, might have contributed to illness spread.
By University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science
January 6, 2023
The first experiment exposed healthy corals to three types of water: 1) disease-exposed, 2) uv-treated and disease-exposed, and 3) non-disease-exposed water in a flow-through tank system. Over a six-week period, they observed the start of illness lesions and mortality to figure out the number of corals that ended up being unhealthy, how rapidly, and whether UV treatment of disease-exposed water resulted in fewer affected corals. In a 2nd experiment, the researchers held the same types of water in containers to imitate a ships ballast tank for one and five days, then exposed the water to healthy corals to determine if the SCTLD pathogens might endure over time and whether they ended up being more or less infectious over time.
” Outbreaks in extremely distant places recommend that disease transportation was assisted by methods other than simply ocean currents, such as through ship ballast water,” said the research studys lead author Michael Studivan, an assistant scientist at the UM Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) and NOAAs Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.
The UM Rosenstiel School researchers carried out two illness transmission experiments in the Experimental Reef Lab at the Rosenstiel School of simulated ships ballast water and UV treatment of ballast water to determine whether SCTLD pathogens can be transported in this way and whether established ballast water treatment methods like UV can successfully prevent the spread of illness.
The first experiment exposed healthy corals to 3 types of water: 1) disease-exposed, 2) uv-treated and disease-exposed, and 3) non-disease-exposed water in a flow-through tank system. Over a six-week duration, they observed the start of illness sores and death to identify the number of corals that ended up being diseased, how rapidly, and whether UV treatment of disease-exposed water led to less afflicted corals. In a second experiment, the researchers held the very same types of water in containers to simulate a ships ballast tank for one and five days, then exposed the water to healthy corals to identify if the SCTLD pathogens might make it through gradually and whether they became more or less transmittable gradually.
The researchers then tested the ballast water produced for both experiments in collaboration with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Key West to measure the microbial communities and their abundance in without treatment and cured ballast water.
” The results recommend that ships ballast water poses a risk to continued spread and perseverance of SCTLD throughout the Caribbean and potentially to reefs in the Pacific, and that established treatment and testing standards might not mitigate the danger of illness spread,” said Studivan.
The Experimental Reef Lab was designed and built by NOAAs Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and CIMAS at the Rosenstiel School for conducting research study on coral reaction to altering ecological conditions.
Reference: “Transmission of stony coral tissue loss illness (SCTLD) in simulated ballast water verifies the capacity for ship-born spread” by Michael S. Studivan, Michelle Baptist, Vanessa Molina, Scott Riley, Matthew First, Nash Soderberg, Ewelina Rubin, Ashley Rossin, Daniel M. Holstein and Ian C. Enochs, 10 November 2022, Scientific Reports.DOI: 10.1038/ s41598-022-21868-z.
The study was funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, the NOAA OAR Omics Program, the Louisiana Board of Regents Research Support Fund Research Competitiveness Subprogram, and the National Science Foundation Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease..