Modelling environmental drivers of black band disease outbreaks in populations of foliose corals in the genus Montipora

Chen, Carla C.M., Bourne, David G., Drovandi, Christopher C., Mengersen, Kerrie, Willis, Bette L., Caley, M. Julian, and Sato, Yui (2017) Modelling environmental drivers of black band disease outbreaks in populations of foliose corals in the genus Montipora. PeerJ, 5. e3438.

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Abstract

Seawater temperature anomalies associated with warming climate have been linked to increases in coral disease outbreaks that have contributed to coral reef declines globally. However, little is known about how seasonal scale variations in environmental factors influence disease dynamics at the level of individual coral colonies. In this study, we applied a multi-state Markov model (MSM) to investigate the dynamics of black band disease (BBD) developing from apparently healthy corals and/or a precursor-stage, termed `cyanobacterial patches' (CP), in relation to seasonal variation in light and seawater temperature at two reef sites around Pelorus Island in the central sector of the Great Barrier Reef. The model predicted that the proportion of colonies transitioning from BBD to Healthy states within three months was appro)dmately 57%, but 5.6% of BBD cases resulted in whole colony mortality. According to our modelling, healthy coral colonies were more susceptible to BBD during summer months when light levels were at their maxima and seawater temperatures were either rising 0r at their maxima. In contrast, CP mostly occurred during spring, when both light and seawater temperatures were rising. This suggests that environmental drivers for healthy coral colonies transitioning into a Cl' state are different from those driving transitions into BBD. Our model predicts that (1) the transition from healthy to CP state is best explained by increasing light, (2) the transition between Healthy to BBD occurs more frequently from early to late summer, (3) 20% of CP infected corals developed BBD, although light and temperature appeared to have limited impact on this state transition, and (4) the number of transitions from Healthy to BBD differed significantly between the two study sites, potentially reflecting differences in localised wave action regimes.

Item ID: 50691
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 2167-8359
Keywords: Black Band Disease, environmental covariates, coral disease, Cyanobacterial patches, transitional probability, multi-state Markov model, seasonal variation
Additional Information:

© Copyright 2017 Chen et al. Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0

Funders: Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), Australian Research Council (ARC), Australian Coral Reef Society (ACRS), Mitsubishi Corporation, Earthwatch
Projects and Grants: ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Date Deposited: 20 Sep 2017 11:05
FoR Codes: 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3107 Microbiology > 310799 Microbiology not elsewhere classified @ 100%
SEO Codes: 96 ENVIRONMENT > 9699 Other Environment > 969999 Environment not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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