Bruno et al., 2007: 

"Coral reefs have been decimated over the last several decades. The global decline of reef-building corals is of particular concern. Infectious diseases are thought to be key to this mass coral mortality, and many reef ecologists suspect that anomalously high ocean temperatures contribute to the increased incidence and severity of disease outbreaks. This hypothesis is supported by local observations—for example, that some coral diseases become more prevalent in the summertime—but it has never been tested at large spatial scales or over relatively long periods. We tested the temperature–disease hypothesis by combining 6 years of survey data from reefs across 1,500 kilometers of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef with a new ocean temperature database derived from satellite measurements. Our results indicate that major outbreaks of the coral disease white syndrome only occurred on reefs with high coral cover after especially warm years. The disease was usually absent on cooler, low-cover reefs. Our results suggest that climate change could be increasing the severity of disease in the ocean, leading to a decline in the health of marine ecosystems and the loss of the resources and services humans derive from them."

 WSSTA = weekly sea surface temperature anomaly

---

Citation and/or URL

Bruno, J.F., Selig, E.R., Casey, K.S., Page, C.A., Willis, B.L., Harvell, C.D., Sweatman, H. and Melendy, A.M., 2007, Thermal stress and coral cover as drivers of coral disease outbreaks. PLoS Biol 5(6): e124.doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050124

http://biology.plosjournals.org/archive/1545-7885/5/6/pdf/10.1371_journal.pbio.0050124-L.pdf

Spatial Coverage

 Reef-wide

Temporal Coverage

 2002-2003

Update Frequency

 Once-off

Other Information

 None