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Disturbance Driven Colony Fragmentation As A Driver Of A Coral Disease Outbreak, Marilyn E. Brandt, Tyler B. Smith, Adrienne M.S. Correa, Rebecca Vega-Thurber

Department of Biological Sciences

In September of 2010, Brewer's Bay reef, located in St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands), was simultaneously affected by abnormally high temperatures and the passage of a hurricane that resulted in the mass bleaching and fragmentation of its coral community. An outbreak of a rapid tissue loss disease among coral colonies was associated with these two disturbances. Gross lesion signs and lesion progression rates indicated that the disease was most similar to the Caribbean coral disease white plague type 1. Experiments indicated that the disease was transmissible through direct contact between colonies, and five-meter radial transects showed a clustered spatial distribution …