coral not doing well

 

Coral reefs are already in trouble with global warming, over fishing and pollution but now they also have to deal with a bacterial infection called yellow band disease (YBD), according to researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

The bacteria is identified by its “swath of pale-yellow or white lesions along the surface of an infected coral colony. The discolored band is a mark of death, indicating where the bacterial infection has killed the coral’s photosynthetic symbionts, called zooxanthellae. The coral host suffers from cellular damage and starves without its major energy source, and usually does not recover.”

The researchers are also able to show that the disease proliferates and becomes more deadly as temperatures increase. So, with thermal stress being greater, it follows that the pathogenic stress is greater, as well.  With rising temperatures all over the world, and the increase of this bacteria, the fate of carol is grim.