Failure to respond to a coral disease outbreak: Potential costs and consequences
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Abstract
A coral disease with white plague-like signs was observed near Virginia Key, Florida, in September 2014. The disease outbreak directly followed a regional high temperature coral-bleaching event. Now called stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), it has spread the length of the Florida Reef Tract from Key West to Martin County, a distance of about 450 km. Recently, the disease has also been observed at a number of sites throughout the Caribbean. The high prevalence of disease, the number of susceptible species, and the high mortality of corals affected suggests this outbreak is arguably one of the most lethal ever recorded. The initial response to this catastrophic disease by resource mangers with purview over the ecosystem was slow. There is generally a very short window of opportunity to intervene in disease amelioration or eradication in the marine environment. This slow response enabled the disease to spread unchecked. Why was the response to the loss of our coral reefs to a coral disease epidemic, such a massive failure? This includes our failure as scientists, regulators, resource managers, the local media, and policy makers alike. This review encapsulates the numerous reasons for our failures during the first few years of the outbreak. Specifically, I show how the Port Miami dredging project that was ongoing at the time of the initial outbreak created a distraction as local NGO's, regulatory agencies, and resource managers initially blamed the project for observed large-scale coral losses. However, detailed analysis of 650 tagged corals that were part of a repeated measures monitoring program required for permit compliance associated with the Port Miami dredge project reveal that both disease susceptibility and coral mortality are invariant with the results collected by a number of scientific teams throughout the region. Finally, when the agencies responded to the outbreak the effort it was too little and much too late to make a meaningful difference. Because of the languid management response to this outbreak, we are now sadly faced with a situation where much of our management efforts are focused on the rescue of genetic material from coral species now at risk of regional extinction.
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2019. Failure to respond to a coral disease outbreak: Potential costs and consequences. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27860v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27860v2Author comment
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Competing Interests
William F. Precht is employed by Dial Cordy and Associates, Inc.
Author Contributions
William F Precht conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
No raw data was used in this opinion piece.
All Port Miami project data is currently available through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
Funding
This work was supported in-part to the author by salary from the marine and environmental sciences firm Dial Cordy and Associates, Inc. (DCA). DCA received funding under contracts to Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company, LLC sponsored by the USACE, Jacksonville District and PortMiami, Miami-Dade County for environmental compliance and analysis under FDEP Permit No. 0305721-001-BI. These contracts provided support to undertake monitoring of coral populations in the vicinity of PortMiami in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The funders had no role in data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. This manuscript was written on the personal time of the author and the views, statements, findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed herein are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of DCA, the USACE, PortMiami, or Miami-Dade County.