Scientists Discover New Probiotic That Could Protect Corals From a Mysterious and Devastating Disease — The new treatment provides a |
A close-up of extended polyps of an apparently healthy great star coral colony on a reef near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The tentacles surrounding the mouth of each polyp help trap food particles for the coral to eat. The brown coloration is from the symbiotic microalgae that live in the coral tissues. Credit: Valerie Paul
“It just eats the coral tissue away,” said Valerie Paul, head scientist at the Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce, Florida, and senior author of the study. “The living tissue sloughs off and what is left behind is just a white calcium carbonate skeleton.” Though the precise cause of SCTLD is unknown, the efficacy of antibiotics as a treatment suggested pathogenic bacteria were somehow involved in the progression of the disease.
First, the team tested the 222 bacterial strains from the disease-resistant corals for antibacterial properties using three strains of harmful bacteria previously isolated from corals infected with SCTLD. Paul and Blake Ushijima, lead author of the study and an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington who was formerly a George Burch Fellow at Smithsonian Marine Station, found 83 strains with some antimicrobial activity, but one in particular, McH1-7, stood out.
The potential of this newly identified probiotic to help Florida’s embattled corals without the danger of inadvertently spawning antibiotic-resistant bacteria represents some urgently needed good news, Paul said.
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