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Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Short Communication Incursion of the killer sponge Terpios hoshinota Rützler & Muzik, 1993 on the coral reefs of the Lakshadweep archipelago, Arabian Sea Rocktm Ramen Das, Chemmencheri Ramakrishnan Sreeraj, Gopi Mohan, Kotarathil Rajendran Abhilash, Vijay Kumar Deepak Samuel, Purvaja Ramachandran & Ramesh Ramachandran 26 October 2020 | Vol. 12 | No. 14 | Pages: 17009–17013 DOI: 10.11609/jot.5790.12.14.17009-17013 For Focus, Scope, Aims, Policies, and Guidelines visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-0 For Artcle Submission Guidelines, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions For Policies against Scientfc Misconduct, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-2 For reprints, contact <[email protected]> The opinions expressed by the authors do not refect the views of the Journal of Threatened Taxa, Wildlife Informaton Liaison Development Society, Zoo Outreach Organizaton, or any of the partners. 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Member Threatened Taxa Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 October 2020 | 12(14): 17009–17013 ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) PLATINUM OPEN ACCESS DOI: htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.5790.12.14.17009-17013 #5790 | Received 19 February 2020 | Final received 03 October 2020 | Finally accepted 07 October 2020 S h o Incursion of the killer sponge Terpios hoshinota Rützler & Muzik, 1993 on r t the coral reefs of the Lakshadweep archipelago, Arabian Sea C o 1 2 3 m Rocktm Ramen Das , Chemmencheri Ramakrishnan Sreeraj , Gopi Mohan , m Kotarathil Rajendran Abhilash 4 , Vijay Kumar Deepak Samuel 5 , Purvaja Ramachandran 6 & u 7 n Ramesh Ramachandran i c 1–7 a Natonal Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Chennai, t Tamil Nadu 600025, India. i 1Graduate School of Engineering and Science, University of the Ryukyus, Nishihara 903-0213, Okinawa, Japan. o [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] n (corresponding author), [email protected], [email protected] Abstract: Our study documents the outbreak of a coral-killing sponge sponge Terpios hoshinota Rützler & Muzik, 1993 also Terpios hoshinota in the coral reefs of Lakshadweep archipelago and known as the black disease* (Liao et al. 2007) frst highlights that it has further extended its territory into the isolated atolls of Arabian Sea and maybe a growing threat to the existng coral reported from Guam (Bryan 1973) and later described reefs in the region. from the coral reefs of the Ryukyu archipelago (Japan) Keywords: Atoll, Black disease, Indian Ocean. (Rützler & Muzik 1993) is identfed by its gray to blackish encrustatons. Since its frst occurrence, it has Abbreviatons: GOM—Gulf of Mannar | PB—Palk Bay | QGIS— been observed in several coral reef localites around the Quantum Geographic Informaton System. *The terms Black disease and Killer sponge are used synonymously. globe, viz., the Great Barrier Reef(Fujii et al. 2011), Papua New Guinea (Ekins et al. 2017), Taiwan (Liao et al. 2007), Philippines (Plucer-Rosario 1987), Indonesia (De Voogd et al. 2013), South China Sea (Shi et al. 2012; Hoeksema Coral killing sponges have the potental to overgrow et al. 2014; Yang et al. 2018) , Thailand (Plucer-Rosario live corals, eventually killing the coral polyps, and thus 1987), Palk Bay (PB)/Gulf of Mannar (GOM) (India) leading to an epidemic (Bryan 1973). The cyanobacterio (Thinesh et al. 2015, 2017; Raj et al. 2018a), Maldives Editor: M. Nithyanandan, Kuwait Insttute for Scientfc Research (KISR), Salmiya, Kuwait. Date of publicaton: 26 October 2020 (online & print) Citaton: Das, R.R., C.R. Sreeraj, G. Mohan, K.R. Abhilash, V.K.D. Samuel, P. Ramachandran & R. Ramachandran (2020). Incursion of the killer sponge Terpios hoshinota Rützler & Muzik, 1993 on the coral reefs of the Lakshadweep archipelago, Arabian Sea. Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(14): 17009–17013. htps://doi. org/10.11609/jot.5790.12.14.17009-17013 Copyright: © Das et al. 2020. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of this artcle in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Funding: Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Govt. of India, and The World Bank. Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests. A preprint of this manuscript was posted on bioRxiv Preprint server on April 29, 2019. Acknowledgements: This study was undertaken as part of the grant-in-aid project of “Mapping of Ecologically Sensitve Areas (ESAs) and Critcally Vulnerable Coastal Areas (CVCAs) along the Coast of India”, “[F.No. 22-29/2008-WBICZM-IA-III; 19 June 2014]”. The authors acknowledge the fnancial and technical support provided by MoEF&CC, Government of India, and the World Bank under the India ICZM Project. The authors are grateful to Dr. S.L Liu (Tunghai University, Taiwan) for comments, to Dr. S.L. Tang (Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taiwan) and to Dr. S.Y. Yang (Shimoda Marine Research Center, University of Tsukuba, Japan) for important literature and informaton on the killer sponge outbreak in the South China Sea. The authors acknowledge the secton editor for further improving the manuscript. 17009 J TT Incursion of killer sponge on coral reefs Das et al. Image 1. Bangaram & Thinnakara atoll (Inset - red star) (QGIS 3.6). (Montano et al. 2015), Mauritus (Elliot et al. 2016) radiatng network of canals, was clearly visible and the and our present observaton, confrms that the species thickness of the mat was less than 1mm (Image 2). It was has further extended its habitat into the pristne atolls observed that the encrustng sponges were propagatng of Lakshadweep (Image 1) (Arabian Sea) and requires laterally and infectng the other live coral colonies. urgent atenton. Other associated communites such as ascidians and During the coral reef surveys conducted at clams remain unafected but interestngly the calcareous Lakshadweep in November 2016, T. hoshinota was serpulid tubes, though overgrown by the Terpios, the observed overgrowing on several colonies of Acropora animal was unharmed (Elliot et al. 2016) (Image 2d). muricata, Isopora palifera, Cyphastrea sp., Dipsastraea Further, in some colonies along with T. hoshinota, algal lizardensis and Porites lutea (Image 2 and 3) in the atoll presence was noted (Image 3a) but the sponge was encircling Bangaram and Thinnakara Islands. Out of 34 absent in the colonies which were completely covered sites surveyed, six exhibited the presence of T. hoshinota with turf algae (Image 3b). Environmental parameters (Image 1). The coral colonies in atoll were patchy and assessed with a multparameter water quality probe (YSI the depth of the atoll varied between 2 and 12 meters. optc probe no. 15K100034) revealed that the area was As depth increased, (i.e., >5m) large boulder corals unpolluted with an optmum level of dissolved oxygen were observed whereas the shallow regions (<5m) had (5.04~8.21 mg/l), and low turbidity (0.3 to 0.8 NTU). greater coral diversity. Certain areas consistng of large Sea surface temperature (SST) during the survey was Acropora beds, rocks, rubbles, and dead reef were also 28.2°~30.1°C. It is important to note that, Bangaram observed. The afected corals displayed grayish/blackish and Thinnakara is one of the few atolls in Lakshadweep encrustatons of T. hoshinota forming a mat-like layer where tourism is permited, as a result, limited amounts on live corals taking the shape of the coral in all cases. of diving and other water-related recreatonal actvites The osculum in the sponge, a primary character with a can be seen in the area. 17010 Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 October 2020 | 12(14): 17009–17013 J TT Incursion of killer sponge on coral reefs Das et al. Image 2. A—Incrustatons of T. hoshinota on A. muricata, A1. T. hoshinota exhibitng osculum with radiatng networks | B—Incrustaton on I. palifera, B1. T. hoshinota mat, B2. Bleached ring, B3. Live coral | C—T. hoshinota taking shape of a Coral (Cyphastrea sp.) | D—T. hoshinota overgrowing calcareous serpulid tubes, D1. animal unafected. Previous studies (Rützler & Muzik 1993; Thinesh et sponge has afected several coral species in diferent al. 2015) suspected that the outbreak of T. hoshinota parts of the world (Bryan 1973; Thinesh et al. 2015; is related to increased water turbidity or due to high Elliot et al. 2016; Raj et al. 2018a) and in the reefs of anthropogenic stress/polluton its close proximity to Palk Bay (PB), it has afected all genus surveyed (Thinesh mainland, as reported in the south eastern reefs of India et al. 2015). In Vaan Island (GOM) the dominant genus (~800km from Lakshadweep) (Thinesh et al. 2015, 2017; Montpora was the most susceptble (Raj et al. 2018a). Raj et al. 2018a), Guam (Plucer-Rosario 1987; Rützler & Our observaton though could not reveal any specifc Muzik 1993) and in Green island (Chen et al. 2009). A host coral selectvity, we can speculate that the dense similar conclusion, however, cannot be applied in the branching Acropora coral beds (ACB) in site 3, 5 and 6 case of Lakshadweep because of its isolated geography were more easily overgrown because the killer sponge (Arthur et al.