Characterizing Gross Lesions in Corals on Fringing Reefs of Taiwan and Hainan Island, China Adrienne George University of South Florida, [email protected]
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University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 4-13-2017 Characterizing Gross Lesions in Corals on Fringing Reefs of Taiwan and Hainan Island, China Adrienne George University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons Scholar Commons Citation George, Adrienne, "Characterizing Gross Lesions in Corals on Fringing Reefs of Taiwan and Hainan Island, China" (2017). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6705 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Characterizing Gross Lesions in Corals on Fringing Reefs of Taiwan and Hainan Island, China by Adrienne George A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy College of Marine Science University of South Florida Major Professor: Pamela Hallock Muller, Ph.D. Chaloun Allen Chen, Ph.D. Esther C. Peters, Ph.D. John Paul, Ph.D. Kendra Daly, Ph.D. Date of Approval: April 13, 2017 Keywords: coral disease, DGGE, Biolog EcoPlateTM, coral histology, South China Sea Copyright © 2017, Adrienne George Acknowledgments The NSF EAPSI grants (2012 and 2013) provided funds for this research project and travel to international labs. Drs. Karyna Rosario and Maria Vega Rodriguez provided comments and critiques of the grant proposals which improved the proposals. Many thanks goes to Dr. Chaloun Allen Chen (Academia Sinica) and Dr. Kefu Yu (Chinese Academy of Sciences) for allowing me to spend months in their labs processing the data for this project. I am most grateful to the Florida Education Fund McKnight Fellowship, Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and the CMS Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowship. I also am grateful for the initial financial support by the Florida-Georgia LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowship funded by National Science Foundation Grant HRD #0929435, with special thanks to Shekhar Bhansali and Bernard Batson in the USF College of Engineering and Dr. Ashanti Johnson, formerly of CMS, for their efforts and leadership in providing this funding to students at USF. I would like to thank my thesis and dissertation advisor, Dr. Pamela Hallock Muller for providing advice, feedback, constructive criticism, and overall mentorship throughout the years. Additionally, I would like to thank my dissertation committee members Drs. Chaloun Allen Chen, Esther C. Peters, John Paul and Kendra Daly for providing feedback and constructive criticism, which allowed me to complete this project. I am very grateful to Dr. Yoko Nozawa for allowing me to use his lab’s histology equipment to process my samples. Stephane DePalmas provided great assistance with DGGE methodology and without him, I would have not been able to complete this project. I am deeply indebted to Dr. David Jones for his assistance in the statistical analyses for this project. Table of Contents List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................... vi Abstract ....................................................................................................................................................... ix 1. Introduction and Literature Review .................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Organization of the Dissertation ........................................................................................... 1 1.2 Background .............................................................................................................................. 1 1.3 Mucus, Microbial Associations, and Environmental Stress .............................................. 3 1.4 Coral Disease and Parasitism in the Indo-Pacific ................................................................... 7 1.4.1 Color Loss ............................................................................................................... 8 1.4.2 White Syndrome .................................................................................................... 9 1.4.3 Pink-line Syndrome .............................................................................................. 10 1.4.4 Brown Band Disease ............................................................................................ 11 1.4.5 Parasitic Copepods ............................................................................................... 11 1.4.6 Growth Anomalies .............................................................................................. 12 1.4.7 Black-band Disease ............................................................................................. 14 1.4.8 Ulcerative White-spot Disease .......................................................................... 14 1.5 Ciliates and Their Relationship with Coral Health and Disease .................................... 15 1.6 Coral Health and Disease on the Reefs of the South China Sea ..................................... 15 2. Study Rationale, Objectives and Hypotheses ................................................................................... 17 2.1 Objectives .............................................................................................................................. 18 2.2 Research Questions and Hypotheses .................................................................................. 19 3. Methods ................................................................................................................................................. 22 3.1 Background Information on Methods Used ...................................................................... 22 3.1.1 Carbon-Source Utilization ................................................................................... 22 3.1.2 DGGE ..................................................................................................................... 25 3.1.3 Histology ................................................................................................................ 26 3.2 Study Sites ............................................................................................................................. 28 3.3 Field Methods ........................................................................................................................ 32 3.4 Laboratory Methods ............................................................................................................. 33 3.5 Data Analysis and Statistical Methods ............................................................................. 37 4. Results for Coral Disease on Six Reefs in Taiwan and Two Reefs in China............................... 39 4.1 Survey and Sightings ........................................................................................................... 39 i 4.2 Lesions Descriptions ............................................................................................................ 40 4.3 Carbon-Source Utilization ................................................................................................... 43 4.4 DGGE Analysis .................................................................................................................... 50 4.5 Sequence Analysis ................................................................................................................ 51 4.6 Histological Observations .................................................................................................... 68 5. Discussion ............................................................................................................................................. 84 5.1 Survey, Sites, and Sightings ................................................................................................ 85 5.2 Carbon-Source Utilization ................................................................................................... 88 5.3 DGGE Analysis .................................................................................................................... 90 5.4 Histological Analysis ........................................................................................................... 94 5.5 Future Work........................................................................................................................... 97 5.6 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 98 6. References ........................................................................................................................................... 100 Appendix 1. Ciliates and Their Relationship with Coral Health and Disease .................................... 118 Appendix 2. Complete Table 29........................................................................................................... 136 Appendix 3. Figures (A–F) and Tables (A–F) ..................................................................................