Voss Lab members Dr. Joshua Voss, Erin Shilling, Ian Combs, Ryan Eckert, and Dr. Michael Studivan, as well as Jeff Beal from FWC and Catherine Lo from the Page-Karjian Lab at HBOI carried out the first round of disease intervention treatments for coral colonies affected by Scleractinian Tissue Loss Disease in Broward County. Over three days, they treated 23 diseased Montastraea cavernosa colonies across three sites in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. Treated colonies were split into two treatment groups, one with an antibiotic application and the other with chlorinated epoxy. Each treated colony, in addition to 11 diseased controls and 8 healthy controls, were sampled for 3D modeling, microbial community composition, and transcriptomic analyses. This intervention trial is a portion of our lab’s research activities on the Intervention Team as part of a larger Disease Advisory Committee, which is being coordinated by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) and includes universities, government agencies, and non-profit institutions across the entire state of Florida. Our funding for this project was obtained through FDEP and NOAA OAR through the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (CIMAS).
This work builds on Master’s student Ian Comb’s project fate tracking this disease outbreak, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and FDEP, and will contribute to Master’s student Erin Shilling’s thesis assessing the success of different disease intervention techniques as well as any potential secondary impacts on coral mucus microbial communities.
We also want to give a huge thanks to our HBOI boat operator, Matt Roy, and our Dive Safety Officer Jimmy Nelson for their help coordinating and carrying out this intervention trial.
This work builds on Master’s student Ian Comb’s project fate tracking this disease outbreak, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and FDEP, and will contribute to Master’s student Erin Shilling’s thesis assessing the success of different disease intervention techniques as well as any potential secondary impacts on coral mucus microbial communities.
We also want to give a huge thanks to our HBOI boat operator, Matt Roy, and our Dive Safety Officer Jimmy Nelson for their help coordinating and carrying out this intervention trial.
