Ongoing monitoring of the SEFL "tissue loss disease" outbreak

Fate tracking over 3 months of a Pseudodiploria clivosa colony affected by tissue loss disease.

Members of the Voss Lab and Jeff Beal from FWC, with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, have been working to characterize the impacts of a previously undescribed coral disease, deemed “tissue loss disease,” which is affecting scleractinian corals throughout southeast Florida. Diseased corals located in the St. Lucie Inlet Preserve State Park, which includes the Voss Lab's long-term monitoring project at St. Lucie Reef (SLR), are being fate-tracked in order to determine the rate of disease progression. In addition, targeted transect surveys throughout southeast Florida will provide information on size-class distribution of coral communities where the disease outbreak has occurred. These data will also contribute to Master's student Ian Combs' thesis research.
 
This work builds on previous projects funded by Florida Sea Grant such as Danielle Dodge’s Master’s thesis, which quantified differential gene expression of SLR coral communities in response to fresh water discharges from the St. Lucie Estuary. Similarly, the Voss Lab contributed to a report published by Brian Walker (2018), and funded by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, identifying the state of local coral reefs following Hurricane Irma. 

Fate tracking over 4 months of a Montastraea cavernosa colony affected by tissue loss disease. A substantial portion of the colony was fractured and lost due to Hurricane Irma in September 2017.