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International Journal of Marine Science 2013, Vol.3, No.38, 306-310
http://ijms.sophiapublisher.com
306
A Letter Open Access
Mass Mortality of
Porites
Corals on Northern Persian Gulf Reefs due to
Sediment-Microbial Interactions
Javid Kavousi
1
, Parviz Tavakoli-Kolour
2
, Abbas Barkhordari
2
, Arezoo Bahrami
2
1. Graduate School of Engineering and Science, University of the Ryukyus, 1 Senbaru, Nishihara 903-0213, Okinawa, Japan
2. Young Researchers Club, Bandar Abbas Branch, Islamic Azad University, PO Box 79159-14 1311, Bandar Abbas, Iran
Corresponding author email: javid.kavousi@yahoo.com
International Journal of Marine Science, 2013, Vol.3, No.38 doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0038
Received: 01 May, 2013
Accepted: 03 Jun., 2013
Published: 22 Jul., 2013
Copyright
©
2013 Kavousi et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Kavousi et al., 2013, Mass Mortality of
Porites
Corals on Northern Persian Gulf Reefs due to Sediment-Microbial Interactions, Indonesia, International Journal
of Marine Science, Vol.3, No.38 306
-
310 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0038)
Abstract
Little information is available on coral diseases in the Persian Gulf; however, in the recent years, reports of coral diseases
increased in particular from Iranian side of the Persian Gulf. In this paper we report a White Mat Disease resulting in mass mortality
of
Porites
colonies at Hormuz Island. This outbreak infected 96% of all
Porites
colonies and killed 58±30% (mean ± SD) of all
Porites
tissues.
Keywords
Porites
mortality; White mat disease; Hormuz Island; Iran
1 Introduction
Being among the most diverse ecosystems on the
Earth, the world’s coral reefs have been threatened by
global and local stresses over the last few decades
resulting in vast destruction (Burke et al., 2011; Fisher
et al., 2011). Disease has been among the most
important contributors to the global degradation of
coral reefs (Goreau et al., 1998; Weil et al., 2006;
Bruno et al., 2007; Rosenberg and Kushmaro, 2011).
Little information on the prevalence or types of coral
disease, however, exists for the Indian Ocean
including the Persian Gulf (Riegl and Purkis, 2012).
The Persian Gulf is known as one of the most extreme
environments for coral reefs with high temperature
fluctuations from 12
℃
in winter (Sheppard et al.,
1992) to 38
℃
in summer (Baker et al., 2004), high
salinity (up to 39 psu), high sedimentation rate, low
depth (35 m in average with majority of coral reefs in
depth <10 m) and low water circulation especially in
the southern part of the Gulf (see Riegl and Purkis,
2012). In spite of being among the most tolerant coral
reefs to thermal stress (Burt et al., 2011), coral reefs of
the Persian Gulf encounter massive coral bleaching
events due to temperature anomalies (Coles and Riegl,
2012; Kavousi et al., unpublished data). Moreover,
85% of the coral reefs in the Persian Gulf are
considered threatened by local stresses (Burke et al.,
2011). Furthermore, coral diseases have been recently
reported as another serious threat to the coral reefs of
the Persian Gulf.
Although little systematic and quantitative studies
have been done in the Persian Gulf (Riegl and Purkis,
2012), in recent years, reports of recognized and
uncharacterized coral diseases have increased,
especially from the northern Persian Gulf including
Larak, Qeshm, and Hengam Islands (Samimi-Namin et
al., 2010; Kavousi and Rezai, 2011). In this paper, we
report a White Mat Disease resulting in mass
Porites
mortality from Hormuz Island of the Persian Gulf.
2 Material and Methods
During a field survey around some Iranian islands of
the Persian Gulf in late August and early September
2012, following a mass coral bleaching, an outbreak
of a disease was observed on the reef-building corals
of the east of Hormuz Island (27°03′N, 56°30′E;
Figure 1). To estimate the benthic cover of reefs,
10-meter Line Intercept transects were established
(n=9) at a depth of <4 m where majority of the reefs
exist. The number of infected coral colonies was
obtained by counting 100 coral colonies randomly.
Photoquadrat method (n=70) was used to calculate the
coral tissue mortality due to the white mats.
Sedimentation rate in the area was obtained by using