Incidence of lesions on Fungiidae corals in the eastern Red Sea is related to water temperature and coastal pollution
Incidence of lesions on Fungiidae corals in the eastern Red Sea is related to water temperature and coastal pollution
Date
2014-03
Authors
Furby, Kathryn A.
Apprill, Amy
Cervino, James M.
Ossolinski, Justin E.
Hughen, Konrad A.
Apprill, Amy
Cervino, James M.
Ossolinski, Justin E.
Hughen, Konrad A.
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Keywords
Scleractinia
Saudi Arabia
Microbes
Climate change
Marine ecology
Nutrients
Saudi Arabia
Microbes
Climate change
Marine ecology
Nutrients
Abstract
As sea surface temperatures rise and the global human population increases, large-scale
field observations of marine organism health and water quality are increasingly
necessary. We investigated the health of corals from the family Fungiidae using visual
observations in relation to water quality and microbial biogeochemistry parameters along
1300 km of the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. At large scales, incidence of lesions
caused by unidentified etiology showed consistent signs, increasing significantly from the
northern to southern coast and positively correlated to annual mean seawater
temperatures. Lesion abundance also increased to a maximum of 96% near the populous
city of Jeddah. The presence of lesioned corals in the region surrounding Jeddah was strongly correlated with elevated concentrations of ammonium and changes in microbial
communities that are linked to decreased water quality. This study suggests that both high
seawater temperatures and nutrient pollution may play an indirect role in the formation of
lesions on corals.
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Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Marine Environmental Research 98 (2014): 29-38, doi:10.1016/j.marenvres.2014.04.002.