Abstract Summary
Coral reefs are declining throughout our global oceans. These declines can be attributed to local drivers (sedimentation, pollution, overfishing, tourism and development) and global drivers (climate change, ocean acidification). Both local and global drivers have profound implications for coral communities, which have experienced increased prevalence of coral disease and higher levels of mortality. Coral diseases in the Indo-Pacific have recently been identified as one of the 15 most globally important environmental issues that require conservation attention. Diseases lead to reduced coral growth, fitness, fecundity and/or colony mortality. Coral colonies undergo a series of biological stress responses starting at the subcellular level and ending with macroscopic lesions or death. This response cascade includes changes to immune function, cellular structure, metabolite profiles, internal and surface microbial communities, and behaviour, and, ultimately, to loss of tissue integrity and tissue death. The strength and speed of coral immune response reflect their capacity to resist infection and their ability to recover. There is an urgent need for tools that address how climate change and human activities affect coral reefs. This NASA-funded project will refine and expand previous coral disease prediction models to a wider range of coral species, diseases, and geographic regions. With the use of satellite imagery, in-water coral monitoring, and assays of coral microbiome, metabolite profiles, and cell structure, we are investigating visible and pre-visible coral responses to infection to inform and refine predictive models at the ecosystem scale. This project aims to develop better models of coral disease outbreak and embed these improved forecasts into the NOAA Coral Reef Watch decision support system (DSS) with increased spatial resolution of SST predictions (5 km), newly available coastal coral color metrics, and expanded application to several different coral diseases, host species, and regions. Improved prediction of coral disease outbreaks can provide the opportunity to proactively manage at-risk areas – including in areas where coral restoration activities occur. Proactive management by reef managers may limit other synergistic anthropogenic impacts, such as dredging, when models predict high disease incidence.
