Journal
JOURNAL OF INVERTEBRATE PATHOLOGY
Volume 120, Issue -, Pages 50-58Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.jip.2014.05.007
Keywords
Histopathology; Coral; Disease; New Caledonia; Endolithic hypermycosis; Porites trematodiasis
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Funding
- South Pacific Center (CPS) in Noumea through the program CRISP (Coral Reef Initiatives for the Pacific)
- French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy through the program IFRECOR(Initiative Francaise pour les Recifs Coralliens)
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We surveyed the reefs of Grande Terre, New Caledonia, for coral diseases in 2010 and 2013. Lesions encountered in hard and soft corals were systematically described at the gross and microscopic level. We sampled paired and normal tissues from 101 and 65 colonies in 2010 and 2013, respectively, comprising 51 species of corals from 27 genera. Tissue loss was the most common gross lesion sampled (40%) followed by discoloration (28%), growth anomalies (13%), bleaching (10%), and flatworm infestation (1%). When grouped by gross lesions, the diversity of microscopic lesions as measured by Shannon-Wiener index was highest for tissue loss, followed by discoloration, bleaching, and growth anomaly. Our findings document an extension of the range of certain diseases such as Porites trematodiasis and endolithic hypermycosis (dark spots) to the Western Pacific as well as the presence of a putative cnidarian endosymbiont. We also expand the range of species infected by cell-associated microbial aggregates, and confirm the trend that these aggregates predominate in dominant genera of corals in the Indo-Pacific. This study highlights the importance of including histopathology as an integral component of baseline coral disease surveys, because a given gross lesion might be associated with multiple potential causative agents. Published by Elsevier Inc.
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