Coastal Sustainability Institute > News Archive > Zooplankton May Transmit White Band Disease to an Endangered Coral

Zooplankton May Transmit White Band Disease to an Endangered Coral

Tropical corals are severely threatened by white band disease, which can destroy the tissues of several species in the Caribbean. Researchers from the Vollmer and Patterson Labs, working from a base at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, have explored the possibility that zooplankton may be a vector for the spread of this disease in the critically endangered coral, Acropora cervicornis. Their findings were recently published in PeerJ.

Author: Carole McCauley