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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Coral Reef Research
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1465173
This article is part of the Research Topic Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease in the Caribbean View all 47 articles

The relative effectiveness of chlorine and antibiotic treatments for stony coral tissue loss disease

Provisionally accepted
Graham E. Forrester Graham E. Forrester 1*Laura Arton Laura Arton 2Argel Horton Argel Horton 3Greta S. Aeby Greta S. Aeby 4
  • 1 University of Rhode Island, Kingston, United States
  • 2 H. Lavity Stoutt Community College, Paraquita Bay, British Virgin Islands
  • 3 Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Climate Change, Road Town, British Virgin Islands
  • 4 Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) causes severe mortality in many hard corals and is now present in most of the Caribbean. The application of amoxicillin paste is currently the most successful local intervention to treat SCTLD lesions in nature, but the potential development of antibiotic resistance makes alternatives valuable. In a preliminary field trial (n = 84 corals), we compared two treatments against SCTLD, (1) amoxicillin paste and (2) chlorine mixed with cocoa butter paste and covered with a clay band. We found that amoxicillin and chlorine treatments both significantly reduced the rate of tissue loss in SCLTD-affected corals as compared to controls. Amoxicillin treatment was the most effective and effectively halted tissue loss in 78% of colonies. Even so, chlorine treated colonies lost tissue at approximately half the rate of untreated controls. The non-specific antiseptic nature of chlorine treatments may also be useful for other tissue loss diseases of unknown etiologies. Although, not perfect, the chlorinated cocoa butter treatment can be added to the growing list of methods to reduce mortality from disease in the field.

    Keywords: Amoxicillin1, Clay Barrier2, Cocoa butter3, Epidemic4, mortality5

    Received: 15 Jul 2024; Accepted: 16 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Forrester, Arton, Horton and Aeby. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Graham E. Forrester, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.