White band disease ravages coral reefs in the Caribbean

22 years have passed since an agreement for the preservation of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System (MBRS) was signed by the governments of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico . The Mexican portion of the reef system now faces one of its greatest threats in history: White band disease , an epidemic that completely destroys the coral tissue of Caribbean acroporid corals , exhibiting a pronounced division between the remaining coral tissue and the exposed coral skeleton.

The syndrome is relatively new and may be caused by a number of factors such as the deterioration of coastal waters due to human activities, according to preliminary considerations presented by researchers.

Some of these activities include bad tourism practices, the malfunctioning of water treatment plants or absence thereof, lack of sufficient and efficient drainage, the violation of environmental frameworks, the logging of mangroves, and brown tides caused by massive amounts of sargassum.

In only six months, the epidemic has killed 30% of all vulnerable coral reef species in the Mexican Caribbean.

Said percentage is equivalent to their recorded death rate of coral reefs in the past 40 years , according to Lorenzo Álvarez Filip, an investigator from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) , Puerto Morelos unit.

“All of the Mexican Caribbean is being affected by white band disease,”

he stated upon announcing that his team had evaluated 20 thousand corals.

Though the so-called “White Syndrome” was detected as early as 2014 at coral reefs in Florida , the disease has taken both researchers and coastal authorities by surprise in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo , who detected the phenomenon in June, 2018 .

Ever since, a special team started documenting the rapid spread of the epidemic, which led to the death of hard corals in Puerto Morelos and Cozumel .

Healthy Reefs

informed that, although diseases and coral bleaching have become increasingly widespread due to global warming and sewage pollution, this new disease is “unprecedented,” since it affects around 20 out of all 45 species of coral reefs in state shores, including the iconic brain coral, as well as the pillar and star corals.

Mortality rates from this disease are high. The corals affected die within a few weeks’ time and the disease now has a wide geographical range, expanding year by year.

Should authorities and scientists fail to contain this phenomenon, which is one of the largest threats facing coral reefs in Latin America , the structure of the Mesoamerican Reef System could be completely altered in 50 years’ time.

Environmentalists and academics met with government authorities on Wednesday last week to develop a mid and long-term action plan to address the issue, which threatens the economy of over one million people in Quintana Roo who live off tourism.

Mysterious disease threatens Mexico’s coral reefs

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