ATOLL RESEARCH BULLETIN NOS. 481-493 -srtCSt: •? 5^fe',.-..- sa-fa :>.:«..'. ATOLL RESEARCH BULLETIN Issued by NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION WASHINGTON, D.C. U.S.A. JUNE 2001 1 ' '"' SW.' ' ATOLL RESEARCH BULLETIN NOS. 481-493 NO. 481. FIRST PROTOZOAN CORAL-KILLER IDENTIFIED IN THE INDO-PACIFIC BY ARNFRIED A. ANTONIUS AND DIANA LIPSCOMB NO. 482. SEABIRDS OF THE CAMPECHE BANK ISLANDS, SOUTHEASTERN GULF OF MEXICO BY JOHN W. TUNNELL AND BRIAN R. CHAPMAN NO. 483. A CENSUS OF SEABIRDS OF FREGATE ISLAND, SEYCHELLES BY ALAN E. BURGER AND ANDREA D. LAWRENCE NO. 484. CORAL AND FISH COMMUNITIES IN A DISTURBED ENVIRONMENT: PAPEETE HARBOR, TAHITI BY MEHDI ADJEROUD, SERGE PLANES AND BRUNO DELESALLE NO. 485. COLONIZATION OF THE F/V CALEDONIE TOHO 2 WRECK BY A REEF-FISH ASSEMBLAGE NEAR NOUMEA (NEW CALEDONIA) BY LAURENT WANTIEZ AND PIERRE THOLLOT NO. 486. FIRST RECORD OF ANGUILLA GLASS EELS FROM AN ATOLL OF FRENCH POLYNESIA: RANGIROA, TUAMOTU ARCHIPELAGO BY RAYMONDE LECOMTE-FINIGER , ALAIN LO-YAT AND LAURENT YAN NO. 487. BENTHIC ECOLOGY AND BIOTA OF TARAWA ATOLL LAGOON: INFLUENCE OF EQUATORIAL UPWELLING, CIRCULATION, AND HUMAN HARVEST BY GUSTAV PAULAY NO. 488. VARIABLE RECRUITMENT AND CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS CREATE A FLUCTUATING RESOURCE: THE BIOLOGY OF ANADARA UROPIGIMELANA (BIVALVIA: ARCIDAE) ON TARAWA ATOLL BY TEMAKEI TEBANO AND GUSTAV PAULAY NO. 489. I-KIRIBATI KNOWLEDGE AND MANAGEMENT OF TARAWA'S LAGOON RESOURCES BY R.E. JOHANNES AND BEING YEETING NO. 490. DECLINES IN FINFISH RESOURCES IN TARAWA LAGOON, KIRIBATI, EMPHASIZE THE NEED FOR INCREASED CONSERVATION EFFORT BY JIM BEETS NO. 491. GROUPER AND NAPOLEON WRASSE ECOLOGY IN LAAMU ATOLL, REPUBLIC OF MALDIVES: PART 1. HABITAT, BEHAVIOR, AND MOVEMENT PATTERNS BY ROBERT D. SLUKA NO. 492. GROUPER AND NAPOLEON WRASSE ECOLOGY IN LAAMU ATOLL, REPUBLIC OF MALDIVES: PART 2. TIMING, LOCATION, AND CHARACTERISTICS OF SPAWNING AGGREGATIONS BY ROBERT D. SLUKA NO. 493. GROUPER AND NAPOLEON WRASSE ECOLOGY IN LAAMU ATOLL, REPUBLIC OF MALDIVES: PART 3. FISHING EFFECTS AND MANAGEMENT OF THE LIVE FISH-FOOD TRADE BY ROBERT D. SLUKA ISSUED BY NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A. JUNE 2001 The Atoll Research Bulletin is issued by the Smithsonian Institution to provide an outlet for information on the biota of tropical islands and reefs and on the environment that supports the biota. The Bulletin is supported by the National Museum of Natural History and is produced by the Smithsonian Press. This issue is partly financed and distributed with funds from Atoll Research Bulletin readers and authors. The Bulletin was founded in 1951 and the first 117 numbers were issued by the Pacific Science Board, National Academy of Sciences, with financial support from the Office of Naval Research. Its pages were devoted largely to reports resulting from the Pacific Science Board's Coral Atoll Program. All statements made in papers published in the Atoll Research Bulletin are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Smithsonian nor of the editors of the Bulletin. Articles submitted for publication in the Atoll Research Bulletin should be original papers in a format similar to that found in recent issues of the Bulletin. First drafts of manuscripts should be typewritten double spaced and can be sent to any of the editors. After the manuscript has been reviewed and accepted, the author will be provided with a page format with which to prepare a single- spaced camera-ready copy of the manuscript. COORDINATING EDITOR Ian G. Macintyre National Museum of Natural History MRC-12 5 ASSISTANTS Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. 20560 William T. Boykins , Jr. Kathryn Clark-Bourne EDITORIAL BOARD Stephen D. Cairns (MRC-163) National Museum of Natural History Brian F. Kensley (MRC-163) (Insert appropriate MRC code) Mark M. Littler (MRC-166) Smithsonian Institution Wayne N. Mathis (MRC-169) Washington, D.C. 20560 Jeffrey T. Williams (MRC-159) Joshua I. Tracey, Jr. (MRC-137) Warren L. Wagner (MRC-166) Roger B. Clapp National Museum of Natural History National Biological Survey, MRC-111 Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. 2 0560 David R. Stoddart Department of Geography 501 Earth Sciences Building University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 Bernard M. Salvat Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes Labo. Biologie Marine et Malacologie Universite de Perpignan 66025 Perpignan Cedex, France PUBLICATIONS MANAGER A. Alan Burchell Smithsonian Institution Press ATOLL RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. 481 FIRST PROTOZOAN CORAL-KILLER IDENTIFIED IN THE INDO-PACIFIC BY ARNFRIED A. ANTONIUS AND DIANA LIPSCOMB ISSUED BY NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A. JUNE 2000 » 2 O ^ ~- ^ CO 5:3 <u h 00 g 9 -a" 3 ogffl ;-. ' ' ° w « rt ._ o o ^ °o O0 O r= CU -— co CU "co .2 m^ S* O .N C 73 J Iffl -o o <S •- PQ ° 2 s CO — £> CD a w g cu M =3 8 « o 3 I £ .s cu C CU • • T3 *- u m IT W •2? g Ch oo O £ 8 co c O CO C <D S o ^ o SH g <u £ o cu uo a - cu >^ 'o C3 60 cu 3 6 5 C ^ £ O s; ° • T3 • a 3cS S o ~ *2 co C cu > cd ™ o cu M.t; o (L) (2h £ o FIRST PROTOZOAN CORAL-KILLER IDENTIFIED IN THE INDO-PACIFIC BY 1 2 ARNFRIEDANTONIUS and DIANA LIPSCOMB ABSTRACT A unique coral disease has appeared on several Indo-Pacific reefs. Unlike most known coral diseases, this one is caused by an eukaryote, specifically Halofolliculina corallasia, a heterotrich, folliculinid ciliate. This protist is sessile inside of a secreted black test or lorica. It kills the coral and damages the skeleton when it settles on the living coral tissue and secretes the lorica. Thus, the disease was termed Skeleton Eroding Band (SEB). The ciliate population forms an advancing black line on the coral leaving behind it the denuded white coral skeleton, often sprinkled with a multitude of empty black loricae. This disease was first noted in 1988 and since has been observed infecting both branching and massive corals at several locations in the Indo-Pacific. INTRODUCTION More than a quarter century has passed since the first coral-killing syndrome, the Black Band Disease (BBD), was observed in the Caribbean Sea (Antonius, 1973). In the beginning regarded as a rare curiosity rather than a threat, it was soon followed by reports of other deadly syndromes, such as Shut-Down-Reaction (SDR) (Antonius, 1977), microbial infection (Ducklow & Mitchell, 1979), and White Band Disease (WBD) (Antonius, 1981a; and Gladfelter, 1982). All these observations were made in the Caribbean Sea or Western Atlantic (Garrett & Ducklow, 1975; Antonius, 1981b; and Dodge etal., 1982). Palaontologisches Institut der Universitat Wien, Althanstrasse 14, A- 1090 Wien, Austria. E-mail: [email protected] 2 Department of Biological Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA. Manuscript received 6 February 2001; revised 19 March 2001 In 1985, a first account was given on coral diseases in the Indo-Pacific (Antonius, 1985a) and an inventory of known syndromes 10 years later (Antonius, 1995a). Thereafter, new deadly syndromes on reef corals were reported in rapid succession, such as Sphingomonas-'mkciions (Richardson et al., 1998), Type II WBD (Ritchie & Smith, 1998), Yellow Band Disease (YBD) (Korrubel & Riegl, 1998), Aspergillus sydowii damaging Gorgonians (Smith et al., 1996; Nagelkerken et al., 1997; Smith et al., 1998; Geiser et al., 1998; ISRS, 1999; Shinn, 2000; and Weir et al., 2000), and, although not a disease sensu stricto, Tissue Bleaching (TBL) (Glynn, 1993; Adjerout et al, 1995; Kushmero et al., 1996; Brown, 1997; and others). Accounts on reef-deterioration (Antonius, 1998) were given for Western Atlantic (Bruckner & Bruckner, 1997; Antonius & Ballesteros, 1998; and Goreau et al., 1998) as well as Indo-Pacific locations (Riegl et al., 2001). The majority of the responsible diseases appear to be caused by bacterial pathogens (Antonius, 1995a). We report here the presence of a disease of corals in the Indo-Pacific (Fig. 1) caused by a ciliated protozoan. The progress of the disease is similar to other "band" diseases, such as BBD or WBD (Antonius, 1985b), the infection spreading as a line of pathogenic agents moving over a coral head leaving behind denuded skeletons. Unlike all the other diseases mentioned, which attack the soft tissues of corals, the new syndrome also damages the coral's skeleton. Therefore, we have named it Skeleton Eroding Band (SEB). The organism associated with the disease is identified as Halofolliculina corallasia, a new species of folliculinid, heterotrich ciliate, which makes SEB not only the first known (stony) coral disease caused by a protozoon but also the first caused by an eukaryote. The first time H. corallasia was noted on corals in reefs around Motupore Island, Papua New Guinea was in 1988. Black loricae were seen in microscopic preparations and drawn and photographed (Antonius, pers.obs.), but the phenomenon was not investigated any further. The same year, the syndrome was observed in reefs of Lizard Island, Australia and was listed in transect counts as "BBD-grey" (Antonius, pers.obs.). In 1990, the syndrome was registered as a rare occurrence in reef transects around Mauritius (Antonius, 1993) but its importance was not diagnosed. This finally happened in 1994 during a coral-reef survey in the Gulf of Aqaba, Straits of Tiran, and Ras Mohamed, Sinai, Red Sea (Antonius, 1995c, 1996). In the following years, all previous observation sites (except Motupore) were revisited in order to investigate the SEB syndrome in detail. In 1998, SEB was mentioned for the first time in an official report (Antonius, 1998), and first photographs were presented in 1999 (Antonius, 1999c). In summer 2000, in order to gather badly needed data on the occurrence of SEB and other diseases (Antonius, 2000a), Pacific locations such as Moorea (Polynesia), Guam (Micronesia), Bali, and Wakatobi Islands (Indonesia) were investigated.