Abstract
Black band disease (BBD) and stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) are two coral diseases that affect the coral health community at Buck Island Reef National Monument near the island of St. Croix in the United States Virgin Islands. The study aimed to determine what type of interaction, if any, exists between treatment effectiveness of these two coral diseases.
Coral treatment was considerably effective during the study. In fact, all corals with high initial live tissue cover maintained high live tissue cover, regardless of the presence of one or both diseases. Indeed, it was determined that the presence of both diseases on a coral colony did not have a deleterious effect on coral treatment during this study. Corals presenting with both diseases did not experience a compounding effect on lesion expansion, nor did they need more time to cease lesion expansion. This was determined not be due to lesions reaching their asymptote of expansion.
Several covariates were considered during the study, although the majority were discarded due to uniformity or absence at the study site. Four covariates were variable enough to be included in data analysis: depth, density of nearby conspecifics, percent initial coral cover, and coral size. None of the covariates had a strong correlation to lesion expansion or success on treatment.
The study indicates that coral managers should not discriminate on coral treatment or resources used on corals based on the presence of both BBD and SCTLD.