Perspectives |
Corresponding author: William Precht ( william.precht@gmail.com ) Academic editor: Chris Harrod
© 2021 William Precht.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Precht W (2021) Failure to respond to a coral disease epizootic in Florida: causes and consequences. Rethinking Ecology 6: 1-47. https://doi.org/10.3897/rethinkingecology.6.56285
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Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) was first observed in September 2014 near Virginia Key, Florida. In roughly six years, the disease spread throughout Florida and into the greater Caribbean basin. The high prevalence of SCTLD and high resulting mortality in coral populations, and the large number of susceptible species affected, suggest that this outbreak is one of the most lethal ever recorded. The initial recognition and management response to this catastrophic disease in Florida was slow, which delayed the start of monitoring programs and prevented coordinated research programs by at least two years. The slow management response was a result of several factors that operated concurrently.
First, the Port Miami dredging project was ongoing during the coral disease epidemic and dredging rather than SCTLD was blamed by some managers and local environmental groups for the extreme coral losses reported in the project’s compliance monitoring program. Second, this blame was amplified in the media because dredging projects are intuitively assumed to be bad for coral reefs. Third, during this same time State of Florida policy prohibited government employees to acknowledge global warming in their work. This was problematic because ocean warming is a proximal cause of many coral diseases. As a result, the well-known links between warming and coral disease were ignored. A consequence of this policy was that the dredging project provided an easy target to blame for the coral mortality noted in the monitoring program, despite convincing data that suggested otherwise.
Specifically, results from the intensive compliance monitoring program, conducted by trained scientific divers, were clear. SCTLD that was killing massive numbers of corals throughout Florida was also killing corals at the dredge site – and in the same proportions and among the same suite of species. While eradication of the disease was never a possibility, early control measures may have slowed its spread or allowed for the rescue of significant numbers of large colonies of iconic species. This coral disease outbreak has similarities to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and there are lessons learned from both that will improve disease response outcomes in the future, to the benefit of coral reefs and human populations.
Disease, Caribbean, Coral Bleaching, Coral Reefs, COVID-19, SCTLD, Response
Imagine that you live in an apartment building, and a dozen of your neighbors became sick, then died. You live on the top floor, and those who initially fell ill were on the first floor, then a week later a few people on the second floor went out the door in ambulances, and shortly after whatever was killing your friends jumped several stories to just below where you lived. At the same time, you noticed ambulances across the street and down the block. How would you feel knowing that whatever was killing your neighbors was coming for you? And no matter what you did, including calls to your doctor, local government officials, and all your friends, nothing happened. It was like you were in a bad dream. Where was the yellow police tape to identify danger zones? Why wasn’t this blowing up the Internet? Where was the official government response? Why was the Center for Disease Control (CDC) quiet? The thing is, this describes exactly what happened to coral reefs in southeast Florida starting in 2014 (
Importantly, similar to human pandemics, in the case of coral ecosystems, this wasn’t the first time we witnessed such an event; scientists and managers had more than three decades to prepare for this latest coral disease epidemic, with plenty of signs that it was coming (
In the fall of 2014, while surveying corals for compliance monitoring associated with the Port Miami deepening project, scientific divers from the environmental consulting firm Dial Cordy and Associates, Inc. (DCA) identified the first signs of a coral disease outbreak at one of their far-field control monitoring sites off Virginia Key, FL (
While individual corals with disease signs had been noted as early as 2013, disease prevalence exceeding 5% was not observed until late September 2014 (Figure
Close-up of initial observation of partial mortality (blue arrow) and first appearance of the white disease line (light yellow arrow) from tagged Meandrina meandrites coral located at one of DCA’s southern, inner-reef, far-field control permit compliance monitoring sites associated with the Port Miami deepening project (coral tag number R2SC2-LR-T2-C1) on September 26, 2014 (left). The initial field code for this coral was “UC” for unknown condition. However, a well-defined SCTLD disease line (light yellow arrow) and continued partial mortality from initial location of mortality (blue arrow) was observed on October 8, 2014 (right) confirming the disease (from
Observations made throughout Miami-Dade County in the fall of 2014 and through the first half of 2015 by
Initially, Precht received little response to his email. However, concurrently and coincidentally, Dr. Diego Lirman, Dr. Laurie Richardson, and Dr. Mauricio Rodriguez-Lanetty had anticipated the possibility of disease outbreak(s) associated with warming and the 2014 bleaching event and had written a Rapid Grant proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) entitled “A hyper-thermal anomaly in the Florida Reef Tract: An opportunity to explore the mechanisms underpinning patterns of coral bleaching and disease” which was awarded to Mauricio Rodriguez-Lanetty from the Biological Oceanography section of NSF, Award #1503483. In addition, Ms. Karen Bohnsack from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) was collecting periodic updates of disease reports from the Southeast Florida Action Network (SEAFAN) BleachWatch program and posting these on the SEAFAN website (https://floridadep.gov/rcp/coral/content/bleachwatch). Coordination with these scientists as well as conversations with local recreational dive operators helped track the spread of this disease outbreak region-wide (see
In 2015, as the disease was ravaging the coral populations throughout the waters of Miami-Dade County, Precht continued to send numerous emails including copies of photographs and the data his team were collecting to inform other colleagues of these catastrophic observations. However, more than six-months after Precht’s initial email, a trail of older emails responding to Precht’s first observations surfaced. It appeared that regulators who had received Precht’s initial emails were reluctant to respond because they thought the coral mortality he was reporting was caused and/or exacerbated by an on-going dredging operation at Port Miami, and that if it was a disease it was restricted to an area only surrounding Port Miami. Thus, the prevailing thought was that the disease outbreak was a ‘local’ issue that was likely caused by irresponsible environmental stewardship (
The email trail that emerged during this period was troubling. In one specific case, a State of Florida employee and program administrator stated the following in an email entitled “White Plague Coral Disease Outbreak in Miami” dated July 1, 2015: “I am admittedly biased in my presumption that new(ish) sediment in the system is in part or wholly triggering this event. I would like to discuss what (if anything) we might be able to do to collect useful data that we can use to prove…my (biased) presumption.” The words highlighted in parentheses are her own. This is an astonishing admission. It’s like if in my nightmare of disease ravaging my neighborhood, that the government official responsible for protecting our health and safety believed that the epidemic, without any evidence, was intentionally caused, spread, and then covered-up by another country (
During the early stages of SCTLD, opponents to the Port Miami project questioned some of the original results presented in the DCA compliance-monitoring reports (
Starting in the summer of 2015, other scientific teams who were collecting data at their long term monitoring sites throughout the region, including at sites far from the dredging project, also reported that the levels of devastation wrought by this coral killer were significant (
In August of 2015, The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE; sponsor of the Port Miami dredge project) asked DCA management to give a ‘lesson’s learned’ presentation to NOAA-National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) regarding the impacts of both the project and the disease on the local coral communities. During DCA’s presentation on August 24th, Precht specifically detailed the catastrophic observations he and his team had made throughout Miami-Dade County starting in the fall of 2014 regarding the impacts associated with this regional conflagration. NMFS staff at the meeting noted they were unaware of the ‘significant impact this disease was having regionwide’ and asked Precht if he could provide them with the data collected outside of the purview of the Port Miami Project (which was at the time still unpublished) to help bring them up to speed on this issue. At that presentation, Precht noted the fact that he had provided staff of NMFS, via numerous emails with photographs, the extent of the disease throughout the waters of Miami-Dade County, this included his original email noted above which dated back to November 20, 2014.
Interestingly, just three days after the DCA presentation to NMFS, on August 27th, the FDEP-Coral Reef Conservation Program organized an ‘emergency’ conference call on August 28th with various local and regional stakeholders (including the NMFS) to discuss the importance of this ‘new’ disease outbreak (Table
September 26, 2014 – DCA divers note first signs of significant coral disease outbreak off Virginia Key – identified at southern inner-reef far-field control monitoring site associated with Port Miami Deep Dredge Project (and adjacent to leaking Central Miami-Dade Wastewater Plant outfall pipe trench) |
November 20, 2014 – Precht notifies numerous agencies and coral scientists via email regarding disease outbreak off Virginia Key, FL and that it was spreading rapidly both north and south |
April 30, 2015 – Baker Coral Conservation Lab at RSMAS/Univ. Miami posts observations and photos of extensive coral disease outbreak at Emerald Reef in southern Miami-Dade County, FL on Facebook |
August 24, 2015 – Precht gives presentation to NOAA-NMFS regarding catastrophic impacts of the disease throughout Miami-Dade County observed during the Port Miami expansion environmental compliance monitoring program |
August 28, 2015 – First Inter-Agency /Southeast Florida Stakeholder conference call as a response to mounting disease reports regionwide |
November 16, 2015 – DCA submits Port Miami post-construction analysis reports to USACE that also details the catastrophic impact of the regional coral disease |
May 18, 2016 – Precht gives presentation regarding lessons learned from Port Miami monitoring program highlighting impacts of regional coral disease to the South Florida Association of Environmental Professionals (SFAEP) |
July 7, 2016 – First Florida Reef Tract Disease coordination meeting and conference call |
August 10, 2016 – |
August 19, 2016 – FDEP organizes second Florida Reef Tract-Wide coordination call |
August 27, 2016 – Precht sends email notice to NOAA’s Coral-List with an update on the status of the disease in southeast Florida |
July 11, 2017 – US Coral Reef Trask Force declares disease ‘emergency’ for South Florida almost three-years after disease onset and one-year after Scientific Reports manuscript was published (USCRTF meeting held in Fort Lauderdale, FL) |
July 2017 – The first signs of active disease was observed along the Jamaican north coast. This is the first sighting of disease with similar signs observed in the Caribbean |
July 24-25, 2017 – First Emergency South Florida Coral Disease Workshop is held in Florida Keys |
November 6-8, 2017 – FDEP & FWC staff hold workshop regarding Intervention methodologies and priority sampling plan for coral disease sites in Florida |
February 18, 2018 – Sen. Bill Nelson of FL writes formal letter requesting Federal agencies to ‘urgently’ address coral disease crisis affecting Florida’s reefs |
July 2018 – the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS), and the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) hosts a coral disease workshop to develop a response plan for the ongoing coral disease outbreak in Florida, with a focus on identifying interventions that could help slow the continued spread of the disease and save priority corals |
September 6, 2018 – Florida Reef Tract Coral Disease Outbreak Coordination Meeting #12. Disease is renamed ‘stony coral tissue loss disease’ (SCTLD) |
October 2, 2018 – Publication of Case Definition: Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) by FKNMS |
December 2018 – Two sessions on SCTLD at Coral Restoration Consortium, Reef Futures Meeting, Key Largo, FL |
February 22, 2019 – NOAA-CRCP and MPAConnect develop a guide for managers to detect SCTLD |
April 2019 – AGRRA develops SCTLD disease page and tracking map on their website |
August 1-2, 2019 – Gulf Caribbean Fisheries Institute (GCFI) holds SCTLD Workshop in Key West, FL |
September 9, 2019 – US Coast Guard releases a bulletin outlining BMPs for ballast water exchange regarding the SCTLD outbreak |
November 24, 2020 – NOAA publishes ‘Strategy for Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease Response and Prevention’ |
2021 – NOAA to develop a multi-year ‘Implementation Plan’ that will outline a detailed course of action for SCTLD response and prevention |
Fall 2014 Isolated sites with significant coral disease were reported near Virginia Key (Miami-Dade County). |
Summer 2015 Disease had spread both north and south throughout Miami-Dade County and into Broward County |
Fall 2015 Widespread disease was confirmed in southeast Florida as far north as Pompano Beach and south throughout Biscayne National Park and to northernmost Key Largo. |
Summer 2016 The disease continued to spread in southeast Florida north throughout Palm Beach County and to the south into the Upper Florida Keys. |
Spring 2017 Reports of widespread disease were confirmed as far north as St. Lucie Inlet in Martin County and to the southern boundary of the Upper Florida Keys. |
Summer 2017 The disease continues to migrate south in the FKNMS and was also first observed along the north coast of Jamaica. This is the first report from the Caribbean. |
Spring 2018 The disease continues to migrate south through the FKNMS and into the Lower Florida Keys. Disease common along Jamaican north coast. |
Summer 2018 Signs of disease were reported in the Mexican Caribbean (Yucatan). |
Fall 2018 Disease corals were discovered in St. Maarten. |
Winter 2018-2019 The disease outbreak reached beyond Key West, and disease signs were reported in St. Thomas, USVI. First reports of disease in South Caicos, Turks & Caicos Islands |
Spring 2019 Disease observed in the Dominican Republic and Turks & Caicos. |
Summer 2019 Disease along the Meso-American Reef Tract progresses south along the Yucatan peninsula and is detected in northern Belize. |
Summer 2019 Disease discovered in St. Eustatius. Disease continues to spread west along the Florida Reef Tract to the Marquesas Keys. |
Winter 2019–2020 Disease reported in St. John, USVI, Culebra, Puerto Rico, and Grand Bahama Island, Bahamas. |
Spring 2020 Disease reported in the British Virgin Islands add along the north coast of Puerto Rico. |
Summer 2020 Disease detected in St. Croix, USVI, New Providence, Bahamas, Guadeloupe, Grand Cayman, and St. Lucia. |
Fall 2020 Disease reported on Lighthouse Reef, Belize and throughout the reefs of Roatán, Honduras |
So, why was there a failure by managers to respond rapidly to this disease outbreak? And is there anything that could have been done that would have saved corals? The two questions are related because the delay impacted the ability to effectively respond to the disease event. It is apparent that there was tremendous opposition to the Port Miami dredging project even before it started (
Equally problematic, five years after the initial observations were recorded of this catastrophic coral killer (
A significant problem with claims or assumptions that the dredging project was the cause of the disease epidemic was that the people who were talking about the dredge project killing the corals rarely, if ever, went in the water to see what was actually happening. Even worse, when they did go diving, they conducted single surveys often long after the corals had died and without baseline data and controls for comparison (
Writing coral death certificates is especially difficult these days because there are so many damaging things happening in our offshore waters, none of which are good for corals (
To emphasize why single surveys that observe corals only after they are dead can often lead to incorrect conclusions; the following example is enlightening. The photo below (Figure
Image taken from Figure
Temporal photographic montage of Pseudodiploria strigosa colony (Tagged colony R2N1-RR-T1-C3). This is the same channel-side coral as depicted in Figure
The mortality of this coral was caused by SCTLD that initiated following a regional thermal stress (bleaching) event and not sediment burial as proffered in the
Blaming dredging on initiating or enhancing coral disease is not new, an almost identical story emerged associated with a major dredging project in Western Australia. In one case, a group did one-off post hoc surveys almost a year after the cessation of dredging activities and attributed a significant coral disease outbreak to sediment stress associated with the dredging project (
A fair question to ask at this point is, ‘Why was DCA confident that SCTLD killed so many corals at the dredge site rather than sediment from the dredging project itself?’ The answer is straight-forward. The DCA compliance monitoring program was the most transparent, comprehensive, and detailed assessment of factors causing coral stress and mortality ever conducted in southeast Florida. Indeed, the DCA compliance monitoring program was specifically designed by the FDEP to detect the causes of coral stress during the course of the dredging project. At the time, sediment was considered to be the biggest threat to the corals, not disease. In addition, the results of the DCA monitoring program are based on 10,850 dives conducted by trained scientific divers over a three-year period (
The coral condition data from the FDEP monitoring program were additionally compared in the lab with corresponding still photographs from each coral for cross-verification and validation. Combining these in situ coral data with other biotic (video functional assessments) and abiotic metrics (sediment, temperature, etc.) allowed differentiation between chronic and acute stressors and whether they were natural or anthropogenic in origin (
So, where do things stand today concerning resolution of the question; ‘What killed most of the corals at the dredge project site, disease or dredging?’ The scientific monitoring data are irrefutable (see Table
Regional coral monitoring surveys showing impact associated with SCTLD at sites throughout southeastern Florida. Gray boxes correspond to no available data for that location (species absent). Species abbreviations in far left column are taken from
Percent Coral Mortality/Active SCTLD | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Species | Miami-Dade county ( |
Port Miami SCTLD only ( |
CSI (2016) |
DERM (2016) |
AOML Miami-Dade county only ( |
SEFCREMP Southeast Florida regional data ( |
FWC
Florida keys ( |
Port Miami (All mortality combined) |
All Surveys |
MMEA | 97.95 | 95.92 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 95.76 | 95.80 | 95.92 | 97.08 |
DSTO | 97.49 | 83.56 | 87.50 | 100.00 | 88.89 | 93.59 | 91.90 | 87.67 | 93.55 |
PSTR | 83.78 | 80.00 | 66.67 | 80.00 | 100.00 | 58.33 | 91.30 | 85.00 | 82.43 |
CNAT | 92.68 | 77.78 | 57.14 | 100.00 | 71.43 | 89.79 | 77.78 | 87.87 | |
EFAS | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 0.00 | 77.80 | 78.27 | |||
DLAB | 82.86 | 50.00 | 66.67 | 100.00 | 50.00 | 80.00 | 50.00 | 81.37 | |
ODIF | 50.00 | 42.86 | 57.14 | 0.00 | 57.14 | 47.06 | |||
SBOU | 68.97 | 34.86 | 57.14 | 75.00 | 51.72 | 75.00 | 39.45 | 52.23 | |
MCAV | 38.06 | 35.48 | 55.84 | 57.14 | 53.85 | 51.06 | 52.90 | 35.48 | 48.06 |
MYCsp | 33.33 | 0.00 | 8.33 | 100.00 | 0.00 | 57.14 | 0.00 | 25.00 | |
PCLI | 21.43 | 50.00 | 0.00 | 100.00 | 21.43 | 16.67 | |||
ORBsp | 36.17 | 0.00 | 62.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 74.55 | 0.00 | 48.32 | |
MDEC | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 100.00 | 4.65 | 0.00 | 5.17 | |
PPOR | 0.00 | 0.00 | 14.29 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 7.10 | 50.00 | 1.58 | |
SSID | 0.00 | 0.00 | 17.65 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 42.10 | 9.76 | 17.08 |
AAGA | 0.00 | 0.00 | 8.33 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 53.85 | 100.00 | 3.41 |
PAST | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.56 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 15.12 | 5.26 | 1.12 |
SINT | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 56.24 | 2.38 | 22.95 |
ALAM | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||||
ACER | 0.00 | 0.00 | 75.00 | 0.00 |
Here’s the real story. DCA’s last monitoring event of the tagged corals performed in 2016 revealed that the combined losses from missing corals (n = 31), sediment burial (n = 7), coral bleaching (n = 4), competitive mortality (n = 6), and other factors (n = 9) accounted for the mortality of 8.8% of all monitored corals, yet 30.2% (n = 194) of all tagged corals likely died as a direct result of this disease outbreak . It should also be noted that at the time of the final DCA monitoring event in 2016, 17 of the remaining tagged colonies still had active SCTLD lesions (mostly colonies of Montastaea cavernosa and Solenastrea bournoni). If you assume these 17 corals will eventually die from SCTLD, the total impact of the disease increases to 32.8% (n = 211) at the Port Miami sites. Thus, while project related impacts were real and not trivial, the devastating levels of coral mortality were caused by the regional coral disease epidemic (
Thus, while I agree with
With regard to an attempt to specifically link sediment from dredging to coral mortality at the site, what was learned from the FDEP funded study mentioned earlier?
It’s easy to point the finger at dredging (see
Unfortunately, by the time the regulators and resource managers finally concluded that the disease was for real, that it was devastating corals not just around the Port Miami area but on reefs throughout the region, and that they needed to pay closer attention, the disease had already spread a significant distance (over 100 km) and was racing both north and south from its point of origin (see
Based on the timeline and history of the response to this coral disease outbreak (see Table
Now, here we are some six years later and essentially the entire Florida Reef tract has been laid bare, with devastating levels of coral mortality (>30%) observed from Key West in the south and Martin County to the north (Figure
Going, going, almost gone! Map showing progressive spread and distribution of SCTLD across the Florida reef tract from 2014–2020 (shown in red). Note on the 2020 map only the Dry Tortugas have been spared the ravages of this outbreak. Spread was faster to the north than to the south and west due to the general flow direction of the prevailing Florida Current (Gulf Stream). Original SCTLD occurrence maps by year were prepared by FDEP and are available via open access through FDEP’s SCTLD response website (https://floridadep.gov/rcp/coral/content/stony-coral-tissue-loss-disease-response).
The current outbreak of SCTLD is now considered by many to be worst coral disease ever recorded on a contemporary coral reef. Even scientists who initially dismissed the catastrophic impacts of SCTLD, like Andrew Baker have now been quoted as saying “It’s probably the worst episode of coral disease on record, anywhere in the world, because of how widespread it is and because it affects multiple species…’’ (
So, what could we have done differently, and would it have made any difference?
The first thing that you need to know about coral disease, or for that matter, any disease that occurs in the ocean, is that they can spread quickly and whatever causes the disease is often carried from one place to another by currents in the water (e.g.
There is a noticeably short window of opportunity to intervene in disease eradication or control in the marine environment. During the early spread of this coral disease outbreak, some species losses, specifically those in the family Meandrinidae (Meandrina meandrites, Dichocoenia stokesi, and Eusmilia fastigiata, Dendrogyra cylindrus) may have been unavoidable due to the rapid spread and mortality of these highly susceptible species (
The manipulative action of removing infected coral colonies is clearly a drastic management response with numerous challenges that include ethical considerations and regulatory permit complications, yet the rapid and near total collapse of local coral populations during this multi-year outbreak requires that drastic actions are needed to slow the spread of this and future diseases that threaten what remains of our already endangered coral reefs. Similar management policies have been implemented where large swaths of vegetation are commonly eradicated in terrestrial systems with varying degrees of success (
As a result of this disease in South Florida, the iconic pillar coral Dendrogyra cylindrus, a U.S. Endangered Species Act listed species, has been ecologically extirpated from our regional seascape (
The depressing reality of failing to respond. An example of monitoring corals to death instead of actively intervening to save them. Progressive loss of Dendrogyra cylindrus colony associated with SCTLD. More than 90% of the colony was lost in about one-year.
At present, there are few other options available to stop or ameliorate a disease once an outbreak has occurred (
One emerging remedial method for coral disease that shows some potential is phage therapy (
There is another failure to talk about, which is the fact that more than 40 years after the first coral disease epidemic (white-band disease) killed billions of corals throughout the Caribbean and Florida (
In a few short years, the ecological extirpation of many key charismatic species has fundamentally changed the way reefs throughout south Florida look and function, resulting in a depauperate community of small, ephemeral, weedy, stress-tolerant species (
The response of coral reef organisms to global climate change in all of its manifestations (bleaching, disease, and acidification) can occur through both genetic and nongenetic processes (adaptation versus acclimization). Therefore, the potential exists for using genetic manipulation to build coral reef resilience through assisted evolution (
What Barack Obama learned during his tenure as President was that any American response to a human pandemic had to be an all-in government response, where all agencies involved needed to coordinate closely with each other including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the CDC. Thus, a pandemic assessment strategy (playbook) was established that specifically outlined how the U.S. government should respond to a pandemic (
Whatever actions are taken, like with COVID-19, they must be implemented swiftly before the pathogen has a chance to spread and cover large areas (
It is vitaly important that the level of coordination and speed of response to potential disease outbreaks must be increased if we have any chance of preserving what remains of our coral populations. Therefore, a rapid, multi-pronged approach is required and at a minimum should contain the following core components:
Most importantly, all these efforts require funding so government agencies with purview over these valuable resources need to make significant financial investments if there is any chance of saving what is left. These costs should be viewed as both an environmental and economic mandate. As noted above, these investments will dwarf the potential financial losses associated with disease-related coral ecosystem collapse presently being observed throughout Florida and the the Caribbean associated with this SCTLD outbreak. Crtically, there is a need for all stakeholders to petition government agencies for ‘State of Emergency’ designations when marine species, especially those that are under immediate threat of rapid local extinction, are at risk from acute disturbances. These designations could help bring visibility and additional funds to these regional-scale disturbances that will help support more comprehensive response efforts in the future.
For the initial COVID-19 response in the United States, or lack thereof, the failure is unfortunately measured in human lives lost. What would disease infection and mortality rates be had a coordinated effort been undertaken at the onset of this outbreak? For a stark example, below is a graphic comparing coronavirus death rates between the United States and South Korea (Figure
Graph of human deaths associated with COVID-19 in 2020. Comparison between mortality in the United States (red graph) and South Korea (blue graph). As of December 9, 2020 the difference in mortality between these two countries continues to diverge with the United States reporting a total of 292,611 COVID-19 related deaths while South Korea only 572 (data source,
So what are the similarities between the failures observed in the response to COVID-19 and SCTLD? The two most obvious include the failure to let scientific data and the facts drive the decision-making process and even worse, the obfuscation of the truth that fomented conspiracy theories and claims of cover-ups based on personal ideologies or political agendas (
While ocean temperatures have increased over the last few decades in the tropics and subtropics, the resulting ecosystem decline that ensued has been devastating. If SCTLD continues to spread and linger throughout the region the outlook for the Caribbean reef-scape is bleak. Thus, the combination of bleaching stress and numerous coral diseases, including the recent emergence of SCTLD portends doom to a reef ecosystem already at a tipping point from multiple stressors, both natural and anthropogenic. An important question to ask is will these unprecedented losses including the extirpation of some charismatic coral species like the iconic pillar coral, Dendrogyra cylindrus serve as a wakeup call to act so we can protect, preserve and ultimately restore what is left of these fragile marine ecosystems in the face of global warming and other local and regional stressors (
Ironically, six years to the week of Precht’s original email,
As previously discussed, we have no time to waste. SCTLD continues to ravage coral communities throughout Florida and the Caribbean and we can no longer stand idley by and do nothing. If there is one take away from the lessons learned from SCTLD in South Florida, time is not on our side. Thus, experimental removal, culling, salvage, intervention, and ameilioration efforts based on the best available science must be attempted to save corals impacted by SCTLD as the risk of doing nothing is no longer a viable option (see The Vigin Islands Daily News 2020). Certainly, if this on-going coral disease continues to spread throughout the Caribbean at its current pace, the white-band disease outbreak that devastated the Caribbean Acropora species (
Funding for the Port Miami data collection was supported to DCA in-part under contracts to Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company, LLC (GLDD) sponsored by the USACE, Jacksonville District and Port Miami, Miami-Dade County from 2013–2017 for environmental compliance monitoring and analysis under FDEP Permit No. 0305721-001-BI. The funders had no role in data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
This perspective benefitted greatly from conversations over the past few years with Lorenzo Alvarez-Filip, Rich Aronson, Craig Dahlgren, Ryan Fura, Sarah Gignoux-Wolfsohn, Brooke Gintert, Les Kaufman, Judy Lang, Alex Modys, Martha Robbart, Lauren Toth, Rob van Woesik, Steve Vollmer, and especially Les Kaufman. Thanks to Ian Enochs (NOAA-AOML) and Bill Sharp (FWC) for providing unpublished data from their regional monitoring programs used in Table