spatio-temporal transmission patterns of black-band disease in a coral community时空珊瑚社区黑带疾病的传播模式.pdfVIP

Spatio-Temporal Transmission Patterns of Black-Band Disease in a Coral Community 1,2 3 3 1 4 1 Assaf Zvuloni *, Yael Artzy-Randrup , Lewi Stone , Esti Kramarsky-Winter , Roy Barkan , Yossi Loya 1 Department of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2 The H. Steinitz Marine Biology Laboratory, the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences of Eilat, Eilat, Israel, 3 Biomathematics Unit, Department of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel, 4 Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Tel- Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel Abstract Background: Transmission mechanisms of black-band disease (BBD) in coral reefs are poorly understood, although this disease is considered to be one of the most widespread and destructive coral infectious diseases. The major objective of this study was to assess transmission mechanisms of BBD in the field based on the spatio-temporal patterns of the disease. Methodology/Principal Findings: 3,175 susceptible and infected corals were mapped over an area of 10 610 m in Eilat (northern Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea) and the distribution of the disease was examined monthly throughout almost two full disease cycles (June 2006–December 2007). Spatial and spatio-temporal analyses were applied to infer the transmission pattern of the disease and to calculate key epidemiological parameters such as R0 (basic reproduction number). We show that the prevalence of the disease is strongly associated with high water temperature. When water temperatures rise and disease prevalence increases, infected corals exhibit aggregated distributions on small spatial scales of up to