CORALOGY:

Lecture 1. INTRODUCTION TO CORAL DISEASES

Agus Sabdono
Marine Science Department-UNDIP
TOPICS:
I. INTRODUCTION TO PATHOLOGY
1. Introduction
2. General Concept of Disease

II. SURVEILLANCE
 I. INTRODUCTION TO PATHOLOGY:
1. Introduction

• clear water,
• warm temperatures,
• constant salinities, and
• adequate light levels
a. CLIMATE CHANGE 0.6 ±0.2°C --- 1.5-4.5 C
d. LAND- AND MARINE –BASED POLLUTION

- siltation and turbidity

- high levels of nutrients
- toxic contaminants
 Sedimentation Pollution

Ocean acidifi- Over-fishing

cation

Eutrophication Global climate

change

Trigerring/
Facilitators

Coral Disease
BLEACHING AND MORTALITY
TANJUNG GELAM, KARIMUNJAWA (Sabdono, 2010)
 CORAL HOLOBIONT ?
Consist of the coral animal and associated viruses, microbes (both
bacteria and archaea),zooxanthellae, and endolithic organisms.
 Interactions between the different components of the coral holobiont to
resist the effects of climate change.

Mydlarz L D et al. J Exp Biol 2010;213:934-945

©2010 by The Company of Biologists Ltd
Publications:
1. Harvell, C.D. et al., 1999. Emerging marine diseases—climate links and
anthropogenic factors. Science, New York, 285, 1505–1510.
2. Haapkylä J, Unsworth RKF, Flavell M, Bourne DG, Schaffelke B, et al.
(2011) Seasonal Rainfall and Runoff Promote Coral Disease on an Inshore
Reef. PLoS ONE 6(3):
3. Boyett HV, Bourne DG, Willis BL (2007) Elevated temperature and light
enhance progression and spread of black band disease on staghorn corals
of the Great Barrier Reef. Mar Biol 151: 1711–1720
4. Kline DI, Kuntz NM, Breitbart M, Knowlton N, Rohwer F (2006) Role of
elevated organic carbon levels and microbial activity in coral mortality. Mar
Ecol Prog Ser 314: 119–125.
5. Bruno JF, Petes LE, Harvell CD, Hettinger A (2003). Nutrient enrichment
can increase the severity of coral diseases. Ecol Lett 6: 1056–1061.
6. Kaczmarsky LT, Draud M, Williams EH (2005) Is there a relationship
between proximity to sewage effluent and the prevalence of coral disease?
Carribean Journal of Science 41: 124–137.
NUMBER OF CORAL DISEASE REPORTS
2. GENERAL CONCEPT OF DISEASE

• Pathos : suffering
• Logos : the study of
• Pathology is - the precise study and diagnosis of disease.
- the science of the causes and effects of diseases

• Penyakit adalah suatu keadaan abnormal dari organisme yang menyebabkan

ketidaknyamanan, disfungsi atau kesukaran terhadap organisme yang dipengaruhinya.
• Disease : “any impairment that interferes with or modifies the performance
of normal functions, including responses to environmental factors such as
nutrition, toxicants, and climate; infectious agents; inherent or congenital
defects; or combinations of these factors” (Wobeser 1981).
 TERMINOLOGY:

• Endemi – adalah penyakit yang umum terjadi pada laju konstan namun
cukup tinggi pada suatu populasi.
• Epidemi/wabah/outbreak - keadaan dimana frekuensi penyakit melebihi
keadaan biasa dalam waktu yang singkat.
• Pandemi - kondisi dimana terjangkitnya penyakit menular pada banyak
organisme dalam daerah geografi yang luas
• Epizootic – Occurrence of disease at levels above what is expected in a
population
• Environment – An area where agent and host interact to
produce disease
• Host – An organism that harbors the agent causative of disease
• Immunity – Non-susceptibility to infectious or toxic agents
• Incidence – The number of new cases of disease over a
specified time period in a population at risk for developing the
disease
• Infectious – Capable of causing infection
• Lesion – Morphologic changes that accompany disease;
manifestation of disease
• Necrosis – Cell death characterized by irreversible damage, the
earliest of which occurs in mitochondria
• Pathogen – Any disease-producing agent
• Biofilm: an aggregation or community of microbes growing on an
environmental surface
• Coral Holobiont: the holobiont is the collective community of coral host and
its metazoan, protist, and microbial symbionts
• Coral microbiome: the collective genome of the coral-associated (symbiotic
and non-symbiotic) micro-organisms.
• Keystone species: a species that is crucial to the structure of the ecosystem.
• Koch’s postulates: a system to determine causation of disease by a specific
microbe (etiological agent).
• Symbiosis: a close interaction or association between evolutionarily distinct
organisms (for review of marine invertebrate symbiosis see
• Microbial community: an assemblage or population of microbes
• Metagenomics: the study of nucleic acids from a given source, including
environmental samples. The technique is usually applied to determine both
the composition (diversity) and capabilities (function) of a community of
organisms
• Next generation sequencing: rapid high-throughput sequencing of large
sample sets
• Resilience: the capacity of an ecosystem to absorb disturbance
• Scleractinia: the order Scleractinina (within the Anthozoans) are the stony or
hard corals.
LESION
• Prevalence – The number of diseased colonies relative to the
total number of colonies present within a defined area of survey
at a given point in time. Usually expressed as a percent:(no.
disease cases/total no. colonies) *100
• Progression – Increasing in severity
• Reservoir – An alternate host or passive carrier of a disease-
causing organism
• Severity – The percent of a colony affected by a disease
• Sign – Any objective evidence of a disease perceptible to an
observer
• Stress – The sum of biological reactions to an adverse stimulus
that disturbs an organism’s
• Syndrome – A set of signs or a series of events occurring
together that often point to a single disease or condition as the
cause
• Transmission – A passage or transfer of a disease from one
individual to another
• Vector – An animal that transfers an infectious agent from one
host to another
• Virulence - The relative pathogenicity of a microorganism; how
easily it causes damage to host tissue.
DISEASE ARE CAUSED BY
• Infectious Disease (Pathogen)
• Microparasite (viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa)
• Macroparasite (nematodes and arthropods)
• Non-Infectious Disease
• Poor nutrition
• Genetic mutation
• Exposure to conditions outside the range normally tolerated
by an organism that damages its body functions.
TRIANGLE DISEASE

TIME
No Disease
PIRAMIDA PENYAKIT/ DISEASE-PYRAMID
Interaction of host, casual agent and environment in disease development
A. No interaction = no disease B. slight interaction = mild disease C. much
interaction = severe disease
VARIABLES OF TRIANGLE DISEASE
• Host- each variety has a different inherent
susceptibility to a pathogen. Susceptibility of host
affected by age, vigor (general health), stage of
growth, nutrition.

• Pathogen-each strain of the pathogen can vary in

virulence and aggressiveness. Rate of
reproduction, size of population, and length of
time the pathogen can survive outside host.

• Environment- temperature have greatest effect.

THE DISEASE CYCLE

1. Inoculation
2. Penetration
3. Infection/establishment
4. Colonization (invasion)
5. Growth and reproduction of the pathogen
6. Survival of the pathogen
II. SURVEILLANCE OF CORAL DISEASE

• What is coral disease?

• Coral disease is defined as an abnormal condition of
an organism that impairs organism functions,
associated with specific symptoms and signs
• Coral biologists use disease almost exclusively to
describe gross changes in a coral’s appearance and
usually assume that a disease is due to an
infectious agent.
WHY IS CORAL DISEASE IMPORTANT?

• Disease outbreak
• Controlling coral population size, diversity and demographic
characteristics (Galloway et al. 2009)
• Moved studies of coral disease incidence, spread and
prevalence towards more advanced assessments of the
microbial characteristics of diseased corals and pathogens
(Ainsworth et al. 2007)
• Further knowledge is being assimilated to better understand
the inter-relationships of climate change, pervasive natural
and man-made stressors and disease (Harvell et al. 2004;
Harvell et al. 2002; Sokolow 2009)
THREE IMPORTANT POINTS SHOULD BE KEPT IN MIND :

1. Diseases can have many causes; some of these are

infectious and others are not
2. The typical sign of a diseased coral is a lesion;
3. Some lesions in corals may have known causes that
are not attributable to disease, though they result in
the coral’s health being compromised.
CORAL RESEARCH PRIORITIES

I. Assessing the global prevalence of coral disease;

II. Investigating the environmental drivers of disease;
III. Identifying the pathogens that cause disease/Etiology
IV. Understanding the coral’s ability to resist disease/
Coral Microbiology
V. Disease Control
I. ASSESSING THE GLOBAL PREVALENCE OF CORAL
DISEASE
SURVEILLANCE
• Rapid assessments :
These characterize the reef area(s) surveyed at the moment
of the assessment; a single point in time.
• Monitoring:
This detects changes over time within the same reef area(s).
Surveillance is Information for action! 42

Objectives

Evaluation Data collection

Data analysis
Action!

Information
GOALS:
• Are there coral diseases present on the reef? If so,
which ones?
• What species are affected?
• Are there reefs, reef zones or reef areas apparently
more affected than others?
Descriptions of commonly-
used surveying techniques
(Raymundo et al, 2008)
Quadrats Photo-
quadrats

Manta Tows Timed Circular Radial belt

Swims Areas transect

Belt Line Intersept transectPoint Intersept Chaintransec

Transects transect t
DISEASE CARD IDENTIFICATION
1. Lesion present 2. Host affected 3. Scene investigation: known cause ?

4. Lesion type 3a. No - record: 3b. Yes - record

• Tissue loss (refer to 4b 4e) • Fish bites/skeletal damage

• Growth anomaly (refer to 4b, 4c, 4e) • Gastropod bites
• Galls, tube formers
• Tissue discoloration (refer to 4b, 4e) • Algal abrasion/overgrowth
• Overlying pigmented material(refer to 4b 4e) • COTS predation
• Sediment damage
 Type of
lesion

Focal

Multifocal

Diffuse
 1. TISSUE LOSS:
A. KNOWN PREDATOR FISH AND INVERTEBRATES

PUWS

Parrotfish

Pufferfish

Damselfis
h

Acanthaster planci
parrotfish, butterflyfish, filefish, pufferfish, triggerfish
Acanthaster planci

fireworm

Algal overgrowth

Sediment
damage
Gastropod
When disease is detected..........
1. How widespread is the disease
(geographic extent)?
2. Is the disease spreading and if so, how fast ?
(geographic spread)?
3. Is the disease killing animals
(case fatality rate)?
1. Geographic extent
Percent coral cover, species richness, proximity to the original site of disease
detection, susceptibility of the population, and accessibility of the site.
1.1. HOSTS
• Does disease primarily
affect a particular group or
genus of corals?
• Does disease primarily
affect a particular size class
of coral?
• Does disease appear to be
spreading between
adjacent colonies?
1.2. PLACE
• Do corals affected by the
disease have a particular
spatial distribution?
• Have there been recent
changes in the
environment?

1.3. TIME
Does disease occur more frequently during certain times
of the year?
DATA ANALYSES :

• Prevalence (P) = (# diseased colonies/total # of colonies) x 100

• Incidence (I) = number of new infections within a time period, T

• M = number of colonies dying per census area per unit time

total number of colonies within census area

CF = number of colonies dying of a disease per census area per unit time
total number of colonies with the disease per census area per unit time
 DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS AT THE COLONY
LEVEL

Linear progression rate = distance from nail/cable tie to new disease front
length of time of census (days/weeks/months)
II. INVESTIGATING THE ENVIRONMENTAL DRIVERS OF DISEASE;

Sea water temperature

Silt and sedimentation
• ABSTRACT
• Coral reef disease is one of the major causes of reef degradation and coral mortality in
Panjang Island. The present study was carried out to assess inter-seasonal coral disease
states present and the coral taxa affected on Panjang Island, Java Sea. Coral disease
monitoring surveys were conducted in dry season (May) and rainy season (November) of
2013. The prevalence of coral disease on the reef building corals was calculated as the
mean percentage of coral colonies affected by disease per 50 m2 transect quadrats. Results
of the present study showed that mean prevalence for all diseases observed was 74.37 ±
5.29 % SE. Four disease states detected were Pigmentation Response (58.68±4.81 % SE),
White Plague (17.76±8.60 % SE), Ulcerative White Spot (6.59±0.08 % SE) and Yellow Band
Disease (2.88±0.05% SE). A total of 386 coral colonies observed, 287 colonies were affected
by diseases. The prevalences of disease in the coral genus were found to be 59.15±6.77 %
SE in Porites sp., 6.85±1.52 % SE in Montipora sp., 6.83±1.01 % SE in Favites sp.,
4.81±0.20 % SE in Acropora sp., 4.71±1.21 % SE in Goniastrea sp. and 1.02±0.02 % SE in
Pocillopora sp. There were no significant seasonal variation (p>0.10) between prevalence in
dry season (74,68 ± 3.61% SE) and rainy season (74.07 ± 8,39% SE). To our knowledge, this
is the first study of quantitatively coral disease on Panjang Island, Java Sea, Indonesia. Since
a large number of corals in Panjang Island were affected by diseases, it represents an
important area for future studies.
•
• Key words: coral disease, prevalence, seasonal variation
RESULTS