White Plague (coral Disease)
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White Plague (coral Disease)
White plague is a suite of coral diseases of which three types have been identified, initially in the Florida Keys. They are infectious diseases but it has proved difficult to identify the pathogens involved. White plague type II may be caused by the gram negative bacterium ''Aurantimonas coralicida'' in the order Hyphomicrobiales but other bacteria have also been associated with diseased corals and viruses may also be implicated. History In 1977, a disease of scleractinian corals appeared on reefs off the Florida Keys in the United States and was termed white plague. It caused white lesions and was shown to be an infectious disease, being particularly prevalent in ''Mycetophyllia ferox''. This disease caused little mortality and occurred sporadically, but was still present in the area in 1984. It is now known as white plague type 1. In 1995, a new coral disease was described as an epizootic disease in the same reefs in the Florida Keys. Many species of coral found in the area were ...
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Coral Disease
Coral diseases, comprising the diseases that affect corals, injure the living tissues and often result in the death of part or the whole of the colony. These diseases have been occurring more frequently in the twenty-first century as conditions become more stressful for many shallow-water corals. The pathogens causing the diseases include bacteria, fungi and protozoa, but it is not always possible to identify the pathogen involved. Stress factors Stony corals and soft corals are subject to disease in the same way as other organisms. This may not have been obvious in the past but is becoming increasingly apparent in the twenty-first century. The ill health is the result of the corals being subjected to increasing amounts of stress as the physical environment in which they live becomes less suited to their needs. Corals live within a precise range of environmental conditions including water temperature, salinity and water quality. Variations outside the normal range of these parame ...
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Florida Keys
The Florida Keys are a coral cay archipelago located off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost part of the continental United States. They begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and extend in a gentle arc south-southwest and then westward to Key West, the westernmost of the inhabited islands, and on to the uninhabited Dry Tortugas. The islands lie along the Florida Straits, dividing the Atlantic Ocean to the east from the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest, and defining one edge of Florida Bay. At the nearest point, the southern part of Key West is just from Cuba. The Florida Keys are between about 24.3 and 25.5 degrees North latitude. More than 95 percent of the land area lies in Monroe County, but a small portion extends northeast into Miami-Dade County, such as Totten Key. The total land area is . As of the 2010 census the population was 73,090 with an average density of , although much of the population is concent ...
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Pathogen
In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ. The term ''pathogen'' came into use in the 1880s. Typically, the term ''pathogen'' is used to describe an ''infectious'' microorganism or agent, such as a virus, bacterium, protozoan, prion, viroid, or fungus. Small animals, such as helminths and insects, can also cause or transmit disease. However, these animals are usually referred to as parasites rather than pathogens. The scientific study of microscopic organisms, including microscopic pathogenic organisms, is called microbiology, while parasitology refers to the scientific study of parasites and the organisms that host them. There are several pathways through which pathogens can invade a host. The principal pathways have different episodic time frames, but soil has the longest ...
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Aurantimonas Coralicida
''Aurantimonas coralicida'' is a gram-negative bacterium, and a causative agent of white plague in Caribbean corals. It is rod-shaped, with polar flagella. Description An obligate aerobe, ''A. coralicida'' obtains its nourishment chemoheterotrophically. It tests positive for oxidase and catalase, and contains carotenoid pigments, possibly to protect against solar radiation. Role in Disease ''A. coralicida'' is believed to be the causative agent of white plague, a disease of some corals. This was first described in 1995 in an epizootic in reefs in the Florida Keys. 17 of 43 coral species in the area were infected, and up to 38% of infected corals died. Genetics The type strain of ''A. coralicida'' is WP1T(=CIP 107386T =DSM 14790T), which was the original strain isolated. History ''A coralicida'' was originally isolated as the cause of white plague in coral in the Caribbean in 1998. In 2003, the 16S rRNA sequence of the bacterium was compared to other known sequences to ...
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Hyphomicrobiales
The ''Hyphomicrobiales'' are an order of Gram-negative Alphaproteobacteria. The rhizobia, which fix nitrogen and are symbiotic with plant roots, appear in several different families. The four families ''Nitrobacteraceae'', ''Hyphomicrobiaceae'', '' Phyllobacteriaceae'', and ''Rhizobiaceae'' contain at least several genera of nitrogen-fixing, legume-nodulating, microsymbiotic bacteria. Examples are the genera ''Bradyrhizobium'' and ''Rhizobium''. Species of the ''Methylocystaceae'' are methanotrophs; they use methanol (CH3OH) or methane (CH4) as their sole energy and carbon sources. Other important genera are the human pathogens ''Bartonella'' and ''Brucella'', as well as ''Agrobacterium'' (useful in genetic engineering). Taxonomy Accepted families * ''Aestuariivirgaceae'' Li ''et al''. 2019 * '' Afifellaceae'' Hördt ''et al''. 2020 * '' Ahrensiaceae'' Hördt ''et al''. 2020 * ''Alsobacteraceae'' Sun ''et al''. 2018 * ''Amorphaceae'' Hördt ''et al''. 2020 * ''Ancalomicrobia ...
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Mycetophyllia Ferox
''Mycetophyllia'' ''Mycetophyllia'' is a genus of stony corals in the family Mussidae. The genera are native to the Caribbean Sea and sometimes kept in reef aquariums. Like all corals in the Mussidae family, ''Mycetophyllia'' are hermatypic, or reef-building corals. They receive nutrients from their symbiotic relationship with zooxanthellae, which are single-celled photosynthetic dinoflagellates. They are passive suspension feeders that feed on organic matter suspended in the water column. Morphology These coral colonies have flat disc-like or dome structures with scalloped edges. They also have corallites which cover the surface radially towards the center. Depending on the species, they may have a pattern of valleys and ridges on their surface. They are often brown, green, or grey in color and are identified by their thin plates and irregular ridge pattern. There are five known species within ''Mycetophyllia'' each with unique morphological features. ''Mycetophyllia aliciae ...
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Epizootic
In epizoology, an epizootic (from Greek: ''epi-'' upon + ''zoon'' animal) is a disease event in a nonhuman animal population analogous to an epidemic in humans. An epizootic may be restricted to a specific locale (an "outbreak"), general (an "epizootic"), or widespread ("panzootic"). High population density is a major contributing factor to epizootics. Aquaculture is an industry sometimes plagued by disease because of the large number of fish confined to a small area. Defining an epizootic can be subjective; it is based upon the number of new cases in a given animal population, during a given period, and must be judged to be a rate that substantially exceeds what is expected based on recent experience (''i.e.'' a sharp elevation in the incidence rate). Because it is based on what is "expected" or thought normal, a few cases of a very rare disease (like a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy outbreak in a cervid population) might be classified as an "epizootic", while many ca ...
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Aurantimonas
''Aurantimonas'' is a genus of bacteria from the family of Aurantimonadaceae The ''Aurantimonadaceae'' are a small family of marine bacteria. Notable Species ''Aurantimonas coralicida'' causes a white plague in corals. ''Fulvimarina pelagi'' was isolated from seawater, and takes the form of nonmotile rods. ''Fulvimarina .... References Hyphomicrobiales Bacteria genera {{Hyphomicrobiales-stub ...
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Dichocoenia Stokesi
''Dichocoenia'' is a monotypic genus of stony coral in the family Meandrinidae. It is represented by a single species, ''Dichocoenia stokesii'', which is commonly known as pineapple coral, elliptical star coral, or pancake star coral. It is found in the Caribbean Sea and the western Atlantic Ocean. ''Dichocoenia stokesii'' has irregular calyces and its form can be either a massive, hemispherical hump or a flat, platform-like structure. Description ''Dichocoenia stokesi'' is a massive colonial coral that forms rounded humps up to in diameter or thick plates. It is recognisable by the fact that many of the corallites, the stony cups from which the coral polyps protrude, can be oval, or elongated. They can be up to long and only wide. Others are circular or Y-shaped and all have raised rims. The columella, the central axial structure in the corallite, is fragile and spongy. The polyps are large and well-separated with a diameter of about . The colour is variable and can be whi ...
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Orbicella Annularis
''Orbicella annularis'', commonly known as the boulder star coral, is a species of coral that lives in the western Atlantic Ocean and is the most thoroughly studied and most abundant species of reef-building coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and ... in the Caribbean to date. It also has a comprehensive fossil record within the Caribbean. This species complex has long been considered a generalist that exists at depths between 0 and 80 meters that grew into varying colony shapes (heads, columns, plates) in response to differing light conditions. Only recently with the help of molecular techniques has ''O. annularis'' been shown to be a complex of at least three separate species.Knowlton, N.; Budd, A. F. 2001. "Recognizing coral species present and past. In: Jackson ...
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Colpophyllia Natans
''Colpophyllia'' is a genus of stony corals in the family Mussidae. It is monotypic with a single species, ''Colpophyllia natans'', commonly known as boulder brain coral or large-grooved brain coral. It inhabits the slopes and tops of reefs, to a maximum depth of fifty metres. It is characterised by large, domed colonies, which may be up to two metres across, and by the meandering network of ridges and valleys on its surface. The ridges are usually brown with a single groove, and the valleys may be tan, green, or white and are uniform in width, typically 2 centimetres. The polyps only extend their tentacles at night. Description Individual colonies of ''Colpophyllia natans'' are large and usually broadly domed, with curvature typically increasing with the size, and therefore age, of the colony. They grow up to two metres in diameter and morphologically earn the epithet "boulder". Colony shape may occasionally be flat-topped discs, particularly when younger. As a type of ...
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Red Sea
The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; Tigrinya: ቀይሕ ባሕሪ ''Qeyih Bahri''; ) is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez (leading to the Suez Canal). It is underlain by the Red Sea Rift, which is part of the Great Rift Valley. The Red Sea has a surface area of roughly 438,000 km2 (169,100 mi2), is about 2250 km (1398 mi) long, and — at its widest point — 355 km (220.6 mi) wide. It has an average depth of 490 m (1,608 ft), and in the central ''Suakin Trough'' it reaches its maximum depth of . The Red Sea also has exten ...
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