Possible causal agent of “white band disease” in caribbean acroporid corals

A survey of cellular reactions to environmental stress and disease in Caribbean scleractinian corals

“…Except for an earlier note (Peters et al, 1983), this is the first report of bacterial colonies and protozoal microorganisms living within coral tissues, and the first observations that some of these microorganisms may be harmful to the corals. Although Lauckner (1981) reported no studies on viral or bacterial diseases in the cnidarians, he believed such diseases would be found, especially since Burkholder 8, Burkholder (1958) could not demonstrate antimicrobial activity in tissues of Acropora palmata, Porites porites and Montastrea sp.…”

“…Samples were then packed in plastic bags containing diapers soaked in 70 % ethanol for preservation, and shipped to the University of Rhode Island. Subsamples for examination with electron microscopy techniques were removed by chisel from samples taken back to the laboratory, and fixed with a cold glutaraldehyde/formaldehyde solution (Peters et al, 1983).…”

“…Photomicrographs were taken with a Zeiss Photomicroscope III. Samples for electron microscopy were treated and examined as described in Peters et al (1983). Other colonies of healthy and suspected diseased corals were contributed for diagnosis by these methods from Rincon and Desecheo Islands, Puerto Rico, by V. P. Vicente; from Sandy Island, Grenadines, West Indies, by M. Goodwin; from reefs off Bonaire and Klein Bonaire, by T. van't Hof; from Grecian Rocks, Key Largo Marine Sanctuary, Florida, by J. Halas; and from the Coral Reef Microcosm at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., by W. Adey and J. Johnson.…”

“…These Gram-negative bodies were found throughout the tissue remaining on the skeleton, scattered in the mesenteries and calicoblast tissue of the gastrovascular canals. Examination of these bodies by electron microscopy revealed that they are composed of rod-shaped bacteria in a colony, surrounded by coral cells (Peters et al, 1983). Microscopic counts of colonies per area of tissue showed that the number of bacterial colonies was significantly higher in diseased corals, although numbers in both obviously diseased and apparently healthy corals overlapped (diseased range 0.1 -1.8, ~ = 0.62, versus healthy range 0.0 -0.8, ~ = 0.37, p < 0.005, n = 25, two sample t-test).…”

Ecological Shifts along the Florida Reef Tract: The Past as a Key to the Future

“…Even after 20 years, the etiology of the WBD epizootic remains unknown, and recent reports reveal that there may be multiple varieties of the disease (or white syndromes) with differing characteristics and pathologies (Antonius 1981;Gladfelter 1982;Peters, Yevich, and Oprandy 1983;Peters and McCarty 1996;Peters 1997;Santavy and Peters 1997;Richardson 1998;Ritchie and Smith 1998;Richardson and Aronson 2002). WBD can generally be recognized as areas of bare skeleton, sometimes bordered by narrow bands of disintegrating, necrotic coral tissue, on otherwise healthy-looking, golden-brown Acropora branches.…”