Experts Share Knowledge about Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease

In early August, experts from around the Caribbean region met at the Eco-Discovery Centre in Key West to share information on an emerging and unprecedented threat to Caribbean coral reefs posed by a coral disease first documented in Florida and now being reported at sites across the region.

Since 2014, the Florida Reef Tract has been severely impacted by a newly documented coral disease which scientists are calling “Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease” (SCTLD) because it affects only hard stony corals and is characterized by the rapid loss of live coral tissue. The disease has rapidly spread across coral reefs from Palm Beach to the lower Florida Keys and in the last year has been reported elsewhere in the Caribbean, including in Mexico, Jamaica, Sint Maarten, the Dominican Republic, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands and Belize. Scientists from NOAA and the state of Florida, sanctuary managers and academic partners, including Halmos College researchers Brian Walker, Ph.D. and Karen Neely, Ph.D, have been working to document the outbreak, identify causes and contributing factors, and develop treatments and interventions

The meeting is an initiative of the MPAConnect Network which comprises marine protected area managers in 10 Caribbean countries and territories, working in partnership with the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Conservation Program, with funding from NOAA CRCP and the NFWF Coral Reef Conservation Fund.