The race to save Caribbean coral | The larger picture

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Emily Hower, research assistant at Nova Southeastern University, works in the field on coral off Key West, Florida. She comes out of the water and removes her diving mask. The news is not good.

Most of the pillar corals that his team has been watching for years are dead.

. Key West, United States. Reuters / Lucas Jackson

Kevin Macaulay, research assistant at Nova Southeastern University, goes into the water to apply antibiotic ointment to corals affected by stony tissue loss.

Hower and his colleagues are in a race against the clock to find the cause of a disease called Stony Coral Tissue Disease, which has plagued since 2014 as a hell through the reefs under the blue Caribbean paradise, at deceitful calm.

In just five years, it has devastated fragile coral ecosystems that are already threatened with extinction by the effects of climate change.

Of the 40 reef sites in Florida Keys controlled by the Florida Wildlife and Fish Conservation Commission, 38 are already affected.

"It's a huge disaster happening under the waves," says Karen Neely, Coral Ecologist at Nova. "It's about the fire in the Amazon. It is at the level of a disease that annihilates all American forests.

The disease associated with the loss of stony coral tissue attacks coral tissue, transforming healthy and vibrant marine ecosystems into a dull and dead world in a matter of weeks.

The disease has ravaged the entire Atlantic reef off Florida, in parts of the Caribbean, and has recently been reported near Belize in Central America. The pillar coral, whose clusters of spiky fingers seem to be rising from the bottom of the sea, is "reproductive extinct" off the coast of Florida, says Keri O'Neill, chief scientist on the coast of Florida. aquarium at the Florida Aquarium.

At the aquarium, a room where lights are off most of the year brings a rare ray of hope. Here, a complex and expensive system of LED lighting is designed to emulate sunrises, sunsets and moon phases to convince reservoir corals to reproduce as if they were in the ocean.

. Charlotte Amalie, US Virgin Islands. Reuters / Lucas Jackson

Danielle Lasseigne, a research technician, cuts a coral of Strigosa pseudodiploria with a steel chisel to remove the part of the animal killed by the stony coral tissue loss disease.

Neely's team is also carefully applying an amoxicillin-related paste to coral, which it says has been effective in treating the disease.

The disease associated with the loss of stony coral tissue kills more than 20 species of corals, most of which are the largest ones that build the reef, keep it together and protect the shoreline, says Neely.

Scientists are working together to try to find solutions. A Disease Advisory Committee has been set up to facilitate coordination and scientists are doing field work to strengthen their research. They are, they say, as first responders at the scene of a disaster.

. Sarasota, United States. Reuters / Lucas Jackson

Corals are stored in a water table and can be used in experiments to learn more about a disease outbreak related to the loss of stony coral tissues.

Despite this, we still know very little about what causes the disease. In Sarasota, Erinn Muller and his team at the coral reef research and restoration center of the Mote Marine Lab are among those trying to identify the pathogen behind and the way it s & # 39; Spread from Florida to the Caribbean. "We are doing these jumps, which suggests that there is a kind of human influence that allows this jump to happen," Muller said.

"We are doing these jumps, which suggests that there is a kind of human influence that allows this jump to happen," Muller said.

. Charlotte Amalie, US Virgin Islands. Reuters / Lucas Jackson

Brandt applies an antibiotic paste to the corals killed by Stony coral tissue loss disease.

In early 2019, he was spotted off the coast of the Virgin Islands. There, Marilyn Brandt of the Marine and Environmental Studies Center of the University of the Virgin Islands and her graduate students extract the sick coral in an attempt to prevent its spread.

His team – like Neely and others – are joining forces and working hard to prevent the loss of this delicate and complex underwater world with its iridescent colors and wavy textures.

. Key West, United States. Reuters / Lucas Jackson

Kevin Macaulay applies antibiotic ointment on the surface of a coral to slow the spread of stony tissue loss disease.

Such a loss would represent "a loss of biodiversity that could be a source of future drugs, loss of fisheries, loss of tourism value," Brandt said. "Many Caribbean islands have some of their coral reef-based culture and if you lose those reefs, you lose an aspect of their culture."

Photo montage by Gabrielle Fonseca Johnson; Edited by Rosalba O & # 39; Brien; Layout by Angie Dixon

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