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Elkhorn coral infected with white pox.<\/p>Elkhorn coral infected with white pox.<\/p>
What’s the News:<\/strong> Over the past decade, diseases, pollution, and warming waters have put coral populations across the globe in a dramatic decline. In an extreme case, the population of elkhorn coral<\/a>, considered one of the most important reef-building corals in the Caribbean, has decreased by 90–95 percent since 1980, partly due to a disease called white pox<\/a>.<\/p> Now, scientists have traced this lethal disease back to humans<\/a>. Human feces, which seep into the Florida Keys and the Caribbean from leaky septic tanks, transmit a white pox-causing bacterium to elkhorn coral, researchers report in the journal PLoS ONE<\/em><\/a>. “It is the first time ever that a human disease has been shown to kill an invertebrate,” ecologist James Porter told Livescience<\/a>. “This is unusual because we humans usually get disease from wildlife, and this is the other way around.”<\/p> What’s the Context:<\/strong><\/p> Serratia marcescens<\/a> <\/em>is a bacterium found in the intestines of humans and many other animals. Resistant to many types of antibiotics, S. marcescens<\/em> is known to cause respiratory problems and urinary tract infections in people. Elkhorn coral infected with white pox.What’s the News: Over the past decade, diseases, pollution, and warming waters have put coral populations across the globe in a dramatic decline. In an extreme case, the population of elkhorn coral, considered one of the … Continue reading
The bacteria can also infect coral—in 2002, Porter and his colleagues learned ...<\/p><\/a>
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