Coral disease outbreak monitoring program - Implications for management

Abstract

Seasonal environmental anomalies regularly affect the health of coral communities on the Great Barrier Reef (the Reef), particularly warm sea temperature anomalies in summer and low salinity anomalies following coastal run-off during the wet season. Such events can have severe impacts on corals, particularly those living in near shore habitats, causing stress that is typically manifested as bleaching and increasing their susceptibility to disease. During the 2008/2009 summer, seasonal anomalies occurred in both the northern and central sectors of the Reef. Thermal stress in the northern sector caused a moderate patchy bleaching event and freshwater inundation in the central sector caused a low salinity bleaching event. Selected reef sites, which form part of a long-term program to monitor coral disease annually on the Reef, were re-surveyed following reports of bleaching to evaluate the impacts of thermal and salinity stress on the prevalence of coral bleaching and disease in these two regions.