Rapid spread of diseases in Caribbean coral reefs

The variety and frequency of diseased coral reef organisms has increased ac ross the Caribbean during the last 10 years. Black band, white band, white pox, and white plague diseases have become more widespread. Yellow band dis ease now affects a major portion of Montastrea annularis across the Caribbe an. Mortality of Yellow band disease-affected tissues was observed to incre ase in the southern Caribbean during early 1997, with affected tissue turni ng white and dying. During the past two years a major fraction of encrustin g red calcareous Porolithon algae died across the Caribbean. This disease, also found in the Indian Ocean, lacks the orange band characteristic of Pac ific coralline lethal orange disease. A millimeter thick white circular rim is seen between live tissue and dead skeleton. Numerous other emerging dis eases have attacked many other organisms in this period, including gorgonia ns, sponges, and echinoderms. Many of those now known have not yet been des cribed. Generally, most diseases affect one or few species (except white pl ague and black band diseases), and their spatial and temporal distributions appear unrelated to bleaching, pollution (except black band disease), sedi mentation, or grazing. This paper brings together observations made separat ely by many researchers over a large area and long period, in order to eval uate the geographic and historical distributions of each disease. Photograp hic images are included which show diagnostic field criteria for recognizin g each disease.