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Spatiotemporal patterns of coral disease prevalence on Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia

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Abstract

Despite increasing research effort on coral diseases, little is known about factors driving disease dynamics on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). This is the first study to investigate the temporal patterns of coral disease prevalence and potential drivers of disease around Heron Island, in the southern Capricorn Bunker sector of the GBR. Surveys were conducted in two austral summers and three winters between November 2007 and August 2009 on six sites around the island. Six diseases were detected: brown band syndrome (BrB), growth anomalies (GA), ulcerative white spots (UWS), white syndrome (WS), skeletal eroding band disease (SEB) and black band disease (BBD). The lowest overall mean disease prevalence was 1.87 ± 0.75% (mean ± SE) in November 2007 and the highest 4.22 ± 1.72% in August 2008. There was evidence of seasonality for two diseases: BrB and UWS. This is the first study to report a higher prevalence of BrB in the winter. BrB had a prevalence of 3.29 ± 0.58% in August 2008 and 1.53 ± 0.28% in August 2009, while UWS was the most common syndrome in the summer with a prevalence of 1.12 ± 0.31% in November 2007 and 2.67 ± 0.52% prevalence in January 2008. The prevalence of GAs and SEB did not depend on the season, although the prevalence of GAs increased throughout the study period. WS had a slightly higher prevalence in the summer, but its overall prevalence was low (<0.5%). Sites with high abundance of staghorn Acropora and Montipora were characterised by the highest disease prevalence (12% of Acropora and 3.3% of Montipora species were diseased respectively). These results highlight the correlations between coral disease prevalence, seasonally varying environmental parameters and coral community composition. Given that diseases are likely to reduce the resilience of corals, seasonal patterns in disease prevalence deserve further research.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the friendly staff on Heron Island Research Station and Béren Pluquiet for support during fieldwork. We are grateful to Juan Carlos Ortiz from the University of Queensland for giving us the possibility to use the permanent sites he established for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Bleaching Working Group. We thank Dr. David Bourne for giving constructive comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the Disease Working Group in the GEF Coral Reef Targeted Research and Capacity Building for Management Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD, 4814, Australia

    J. Haapkylä, M. Flavell & B. L. Willis

  2. Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, 7001, Australia

    J. Melbourne-Thomas

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  1. J. Haapkylä
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  2. J. Melbourne-Thomas
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  3. M. Flavell
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  4. B. L. Willis
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Correspondence to J. Haapkylä.

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Communicated by Environment Editor Prof. Rob van Woesik

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Haapkylä, J., Melbourne-Thomas, J., Flavell, M. et al. Spatiotemporal patterns of coral disease prevalence on Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Coral Reefs 29, 1035–1045 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-010-0660-z

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