Coral Disease on the Great Barrier Reef

Abstract

Coral disease is one of the most recent in a series of threats that is challenging the resilience of coral reef communities and is of particular concern because it may interact with and augment the impacts of other commonly recognised threats to coral health (e.g. bleaching, over-exploitation of fish stocks, destructive fishing practices and coastal developments). Since the first report of coral disease by Antonius in 1973, the rate of discovery of new diseases has increased dramatically with more than 29 coral diseases now described (Green and Bruckner 2000, Weil, this Vol.). Although coral disease is emerging as one of the major causes of coral reef deterioration in the Caribbean (Hayes and Goreau 1998; Harvell et al. 2002; Weil et al. 2002), at present we know very little about the ecology or pathology of coral disease on Indo-Pacific reefs. The comparatively few reports of coral disease from Indo-Pacific reefs, despite the region encompassing more than 80% of reefs worldwide (Bryant et al. 1998) is in contrast to the high proportion (>65%) of records in the Global Disease Database from the Caribbean reef region, now widely considered to be a coral disease hotspot (Green and Bruckner 2000; Weil, this Vol.). Such comparisons suggest that either disease is genuinely more prevalent in the Caribbean or lack of studies in other reef regions is underestimating its distribution and abundance. Distinguishing between these two alternatives represents an important step in advancing global epizootiological studies.