Ecological and molecular characterization of a coral black band disease outbreak in the Red Sea during a bleaching event
Type
ArticleAuthors
Hadaidi, Ghaida A.
Ziegler, Maren

Shore-Maggio, Amanda
Jensen, Thor
Aeby, Greta
Voolstra, Christian R.

KAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) DivisionBioscience Program
Marine Science Program
Red Sea Research Center (RSRC)
Date
2018-07-12Embargo End Date
1/7/2019Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/630753
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Black Band Disease (BBD) is a widely distributed and destructive coral disease that has been studied on a global scale, but baseline data on coral diseases is missing from many areas of the Arabian Seas. Here we report on the broad distribution and prevalence of BBD in the Red Sea in addition to documenting a bleaching-associated outbreak of BBD with subsequent microbial community characterization of BBD microbial mats at this reef site in the southern central Red Sea. Coral colonies with BBD were found at roughly a third of our 22 survey sites with an overall prevalence of 0.04%. Nine coral genera were infected including Astreopora, Coelastrea, Dipsastraea, Gardineroseris, Goniopora, Montipora, Pavona, Platygyra, and Psammocora. For a southern central Red Sea outbreak site, overall prevalence was 40 times higher than baseline (1.7%). Differential susceptibility to BBD was apparent among coral genera with Dipsastraea (prevalence 6.1%), having more diseased colonies than was expected based on its abundance within transects. Analysis of the microbial community associated with the BBD mat showed that it is dominated by a consortium of cyanobacteria and heterotrophic bacteria. We detected the three main indicators for BBD (filamentous cyanobacteria, sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB), and sulfide-oxidizing bacteria (SOB)), with high similarity to BBD-associated microbes found worldwide. More specifically, the microbial consortium of BBD-diseased coral colonies in the Red Sea consisted of Oscillatoria sp. (cyanobacteria), Desulfovibrio sp. (SRB), and Arcobacter sp. (SOB). Given the similarity of associated bacteria worldwide, our data suggest that BBD represents a global coral disease with predictable etiology. Furthermore, we provide a baseline assessment of BBD disease prevalence in the Red Sea, a still understudied region.Citation
Hadaidi G, Ziegler M, Shore-Maggio A, Jensen T, Aeby G, et al. (2018) Ecological and molecular characterization of a coral black band disease outbreak in the Red Sea during a bleaching event. PeerJ 6: e5169. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5169.Sponsors
We would like to thank the KAUST Coastal and Marine Resources Core Lab (CMOR) for their assistance and support in field operations and the KAUST Bioscience Core Lab (BCL) for sequencing. We wish to thank Craig Michell (KAUST) for sequence library preparation and Nikolaos Zarokanellos (KAUST) for help withPublisher
PeerJJournal
PeerJAdditional Links
http://europepmc.org/articles/pmc6046197?pdf=renderRelations
Is Supplemented By:- [Bioproject]
Title: Black Band Disease Red Sea CoralsPublication Date: 2018-02-28. bioproject: PRJNA436216 Handle: 10754/666712
ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.7717/peerj.5169