What is it about?
Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) has devastated many coral species in the Western Atlantic. However, the reef coral, Siderastrea siderea, exhibits unusual lesion patterns that don’t entirely fit the SCTLD profile. Our objective was to investigate lesion dynamics in S. siderea at cellular through ecological scales, and compare it with SCTLD in other species.
Featured Image
Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Disease has emerged as a serious problem for corals adding to their demise and the loss of coral reefs throughout the world. Knowing how these diseases are transmitted, their lethality to corals and what may be causing them is critical for helping manage diseases on coral reefs.
Perspectives
Like other animals, corals get many different types of diseases and each disease must be studied to understand its dynamics. The reef coral, Siderastrea siderea, has these unusual purple lesions but biologists had no idea how harmful they were to the corals. This study allowed us to gain the information about the disease dynamics of these lesions and share this information with other biologists.
greta aeby
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Progressive chronic tissue loss disease in Siderastrea siderea on Florida’s coral reef, PLOS One, August 2025, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0329911.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
