[Coral-List] Coralline Algae Lethal Disease AKA Goreau's
Maria Gomez
klegomez at uq.edu.au
Sun Nov 4 19:04:28 EST 2007
Dear Thomas, Ernesto and all,
Are you all sure that what you observed is a disease or syndrome? There is a
phenomenon called 'epithellial sloughing' (Johnson and Mann 1986; Keats et
al 1993, 2004) in which the coralline algae sheds the epithelial cells. In
many cases this shedding happens all at once and the tissue appears white
and scaly. Some species undergone this shedding once or twice a year and it
seems very regular and no mortality is been recorder following this. Several
hypotheses have been put forward including antifouling response, shedding of
old conceptacles, shedding grazer-damaged tissue and that remaining thin
allows for higher rates of lateral growth. Just a thought.
Cheers
K-le
-----Original Message-----
From: terramar at caribcable.com [mailto:terramar at caribcable.com]
Sent: Friday, 2 November 2007 3:47 AM
To: 'Thomas Goreau'; 'Aldo Croquer'; Coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov; 'Julian
Sprung'
Cc: Mark Littler; littlerd at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Coralline Algae Lethal Disease AKA Goreau's
Where can we see a photo of this disease?
Barb Whitman
Nevis
On Thu Nov 1 11:08 , "Julian Sprung" sent:
Just a short observation.
I saw and photographed this happening in an aquarium. It formed the
odd-looking "crop circle" pattern too! This appeared suddenly and
was gone within a couple of weeks. The coralline algae resumed
normal growth afterwards.
Cheers,
Julian
-----Original Message-----
From: [1]coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov on behalf of Thomas
Goreau
Sent: Wed 10/31/2007 5:16 PM
To: Aldo Croquer; [2]Coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Cc: Mark Littler; [3]littlerd at gmail.com
Subject: [Coral-List] Coralline Algae Lethal Disease AKA Goreau's
DiseaseAKA Algae White Disease
Dear Aldo and Coral List readers,
This slow spreading disease of encrusting red calcareous algae
expands in circular lesions, but often stops short of killing the
whole alga. It is distinguished by a white expanding ring, usually
a
millimeter or two wide, but in some cases up to a centimeter wide,
with a sharp rim against the external pink or purplish encrusting
red
calcareous alga, The interior of the expanding circle is made up of
a
fine filamentous alga with a very distinctive olive green color.
I have documented it globally since 1991. I have many images on
video
and a few photographs showing it all around the Caribbean, Indian
Ocean, Pacific, and South East Asia, but have never had the time to
compile them. However I have seen rare examples of it on much older
photographs, so while it is not genuinely a "new' disease, it has
certainly greatly expanded in the last 15 years.
I first noticed that this disease had spread very rapidly in the
intertidal sea level notch in Negril, Jamaica, over a few months
around 1991-2, and named it Coralline Algae Lethal Disease *CALD),
by
analogy with the Littler's Coralline Lethal Orange Disease (CLOD).
Subsequently the encrusting reds in this habitat were overgrown and
killed by fleshy algae as the area became eutrophic and algae
spread
all over the reef (NB: algae overgrew the reefs in Negril only in
the
early 1990s, after tourism development and NOT after the Diadema
die
off in 1983, or the earlier overfishing, as popular "phase shift"
mythology claims). Later Esther Peters mentioned it on her web site
and called it "Goreau's Disease", a name I 'd rather see confined
to
something that is completely lethal and affects only politicians
and
their scientific servants. CALD is what Ernesto Weil and yourself
have recently noticed and are now calling Algae White Disease.
I wrote a paper describing this around 1992 in a report on
environmental changes in western Jamaica published in the
proceedings
of a conference held by the Negril Coral Reef Preservation Society.
I
don't have either a xerox or a scanned copy available, and the
original is someplace in the mountain of boxes in my basement, that
is to say, effectively unreachable. It took me a couple of years to
convince Mark and Diane Littler that this was in fact a disease
they
had not noticed before, and they now agree that it is far more
widespread than CLOD.
Since CALD is so widespread, and I don't have time to compile my
observations, I'm now forwarding this to the coral list server to
see
if other people are also noticing it. I'm sure it is present almost
every place where encrusting red algae have not yet been totally
smothered by eutrophic fleshy algae, although it's frequency varies
greatly from site to site.
Best wishes,
Tom
Thomas J. Goreau, PhD
President
Global Coral Reef Alliance
37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge MA 02139
617-864-4226
[4]goreau at bestweb.net
[5]http://www.globalcoral.org
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