Abstract
Coral disease is a significant driver of global coral declines and structural changes of coral reef ecosystems, and the increase in coral disease occurrence and transmission has been linked to anthropogenic climate change. This dissertation presents research on coral disease through regional, community, and gene expression investigations.
At the regional level, a systematic review serves as the introduction to this dissertation, providing an overview of the chronology and scope of tropical stony coral (Cnidaria: Scleractinia) disease investigations in the Tropical Northwestern Atlantic (TNA). Through this systematic review, this dissertation aims to determine how the approaches to understanding coral disease have evolved as coral disease events have increased in both frequency and scale in the TNA, as well as segue into the aims of the following chapters.
At the community level, my research expands to understand the environmental and ecological factors that influence stony coral community dynamics, and how this potentially interplays with stony coral disease as a stressor. A temporally expansive dataset is used to assess how stony coral communities have changed in diversity and function over time in nearshore hardbottom communities in the Florida Keys.
At the gene expression level, by employing molecular techniques such as transcriptomics, I assess how stony corals afflicted with Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) exhibit differential expression depending on the algal symbionts that they host and previous bleaching stress.
By employing a multiscale approach, this dissertation aims to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of coral disease and offer insight into the complex interplay of stony coral disease with genetics and the external environment. These findings will contribute to the development of targeted disease management, the identification of resilient stony coral populations, and the preservation of coral reef ecosystems amidst large-scale environmental change.