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Introduction | Identification | Impacts | Causes | Actions | More Info
Causes
| Human impacts on reefs and their relationship to the frequency of disease are increasingly recognized as one of the most important yet poorly understood aspects of coral diseases (World Conservation Monitoring Centre). Nonetheless, there is growing evidence that a relationship between disease and water pollution exists (Mitchell and Chet 1975; Antonius 1981). In addition, there is also evidence that coral diseases may be linked to global warming. A study on the Great Barrier Reef revealed that the appearance of white and black band diseases occurred after a period of historically unprecedented and sustained elevated sea surface temperatures (Rosenberg and Ben-Haim 2002). This finding corresponds with the general acceptance that in the Caribbean, black band disease outbreaks occur during the warmest months of the year and research has also discovered that bacterial bleaching of corals can be triggered by high temperatures (Richardson and Aronson 2002). In addition, bleaching of coral can result from infections of bacteria during and independent from periods of elevated sea temperature. To better understand how Coral Diseases are related to other issues, refer to this Flowchart Diagram |  | | Porites spp. with pink band disease.
Location: Pulau Payar Marine Park, Malaysia
Photo by: Yusri bin Yusuf
(from ReefBase: http://www.reefbase.org) |
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