BACKGROUND Coral diseases are emerging as a serious threat to coral reefs worldwide. Of nine coral infectious diseases, whose pathogens have been characterized, six are caused by agents from the family Vibrionacae, raising questions as to their origin and role in coral disease aetiology. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Here we report on a Vibrio zinc-metalloprotease causing rapid photoinactiva...

Coral bleaching, during which corals lose their symbiotic dinoflagellates, typically corresponds with periods of intense heat stress, and appears to be increasing in frequency and geographic extent as the climate warms. A fundamental question in coral reef ecology is whether chronic local stress reduces coral resistance and resilience from episodic stress such as bleaching, or alternatively pro...

Over 60% of Singapore’s coral reef habitat have been lost to decades of urban development pressure including land reclamation. Underwater visibility of less than 2m due to heavy sedimentation has restricted the healthy coral growth zone to the reef crest and upper 5m of the reef slope. Despite the impacts, coral species diversity has remained high together with predictable coral mass spawning e...

Coral reef ecosystems worldwide are under pressure from chronic and acute stressors that threaten their continued existence. Most obvious among changes to reefs is loss of hard coral cover, but a precise multi-scale estimate of coral cover dynamics for the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is currently lacking. Monitoring data collected annually from fixed sites at 47 reefs across 1300 km of the GBR ind...

Coral communities are changing rapidly worldwide through loss of coral cover and shifts in species composition. Although many reef-building corals are likely to decline, some weedy opportunistic species might increase in abundance. Here we explore whether the reshuffling of species can maintain ecosystem integrity and functioning. Using four common Caribbean reef-building coral genera we modele...

Corals were bleached throughout Kenya and most of the western Indian Ocean in the warm season of 1998 and coral mortality occurred over an extended period from March to July 1998 (1–3). Nearly all studied Kenyan coral reefs had coral cover of around 10% after the coral bleaching (1, 3). The greatest levels of mortality were experienced in marine protected areas that originally had high coral co...

The effect of percentage live coral cover on the number of fish species and individuals was determined by censusing fish from a series of reefs of comparable structural complexity, but with different proportions of live coral, in the lagoon of Mataiva Atoll, Tuamotu Archipelago. Regression analysis showed that there was a highly significant (p < 0.001) positive relationship between live coral c...

BACKGROUND A number of factors have recently caused mass coral mortality events in all of the world's tropical oceans. However, little is known about the timing, rate or spatial variability of the loss of reef-building corals, especially in the Indo-Pacific, which contains 75% of the world's coral reefs. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPLE FINDINGS We compiled and analyzed a coral cover database of 6001 qu...

More diverse communities are thought to be more stable-the diversity-stability hypothesis-due to increased resistance to and recovery from disturbances. For example, high diversity can make the presence of resilient or fast growing species and key facilitations among species more likely. How natural, geographic biodiversity patterns and changes in biodiversity due to human activities mediate co...

The symbiotic association between the coral animal and its endosymbiotic dinoflagellate partner Symbiodinium is central to the success of corals. However, an array of other microorganisms associated with coral (i.e., Bacteria, Archaea, Fungi, and viruses) have a complex and intricate role in maintaining homeostasis between corals and Symbiodinium. Corals are sensitive to shifts in the surroundi...