NSF Award
0326698
ABSTRACT<br/><br/>OCE-0326705 / OCE-0326983 / OCE-0326269 / OCE-0326698<br/><br/>Recent high rates of disease outbreaks on coral reefs may be caused by climate-related stress, increased inputs of new pathogens, or both. The inability to use traditional methods of disease management in marine systems (culling, vaccination, quarantine) adds urgency to understanding and controlling disease in the ocean. The most practical remediation for coral disease is to control inputs and spread. Yet, we do not know the origin of any coral pathogen nor do we understand mechanisms of transmission. The aspergillus - sea fan coral epizootic is an excellent model system for testing hypotheses about the origins of emergent marine disease, the relative importance of transmission and resistance in outbreaks and particularly the role of environmental facilitators. In this project, researchers at Cornell University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of South Carolina, and the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute will investigate this system through a research program combining linked experimental and theoretical approaches. The objectives are <br/><br/>(1) to determine the origins of the aspergillosis outbreak in sea fans, using microsatellite markers;<br/>(2) to evaluate the role of host resistance through development of immunological assays;<br/>(3) to evaluate experimentally the role of environmental facilitators in the outbreak;<br/>(4) to assess demographic and spatial determinants of infection risk; and<br/>(5) to develop a predictive theory of disease outbreak and spread through a spatial model for spread of disease in coral populations, embedded in an agent- based framework.<br/><br/>The project is expected to have broad educational and international impacts because will enrich undergraduate teaching programs in Akumal, Mexico, and train high school students, undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at field sites and at the home research institutions. The primary intellectual merit of this project is bringing current theory in wildlife disease to a tropical marine study system that is easily manipulated. The project will be enhanced by seeking applied outcomes for management of coral reefs and forging new directions in the ecology of marine and particularly coral reef diseases through interactions with NOAA and World Bank targeted research initiatives.
