A new and fatal disease, with unprecedented speed frame large amounts of corals in The Caribbean Sea.
the Disease resulting in the loss of tissue in stenkoraller – koralrevets building blocks and have forced researchers to tear the corals of the reefs.
Thus crashing the researchers a basic rule about never touching the corals. They do this in order to stop the disease from spreading to those not yet affected parts of the reefs.
– I have never seen anything that hit so many species so fast and so sore – and it just continues, says Marylin Brandt from the University of the Virgin Islands.
She is involved in trying to save the reefs off the island of St. Thomas, which is a part of The U.s. Virgin islands, the former Danish west indies.
– All the diseases to which I have previously examined, has reminded about the flu. They come every year in the seasons, and sometimes there is a worse outbreak. But this here is more reminiscent of ebola. It is a killer, and we don’t know how to stop it, says Marilyn Brandt.
Photo credit: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
Photo credit: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
the Disease has in English been given the name of ‘Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease’ and leads to rapid loss of tissue.
First shows up on the scattered coral in the form of white splotches that slowly spreads and eventually remove all the color and life from it.
It was first recorded in Florida in 2014. For the time being will send researchers samples to other states in the UNITED states, to find out what can be done about the disease, which can hit at least 20 different species.
These species constitute about half of the corals in the Florida reef and about one-third of all corals in The Caribbean Sea.
the Threat is extremely serious. Vulnerable ecosystems are already under pressure from rising sea temperatures, which have led to the bleaching of corals in great extent – probably most well known by the world’s largest coral reef, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
coral reefs around the islands in the area of the Florida Upper Keys is reduced by about 40 percent in the period from 2013 to 2018, according to the local naturmyndigheder.
About one percent of the Earth’s surface is covered in coral, which consists of thousands of small animals in large colonies.
