Mote Marine Laboratory finds disease-resistant coral that could help Florida reef restoration

SARASOTA, Fla - Scientists at Mote Marine Laboratory have discovered disease-resistant coral strains that could prove vital to restoring Florida's severely depleted reef ecosystems. The breakthrough follows a four-year study targeting one of the fastest-spreading and most destructive marine outbreaks in recent history.

Coral reef health crisis

The backstory:

Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease has plagued Florida's coastlines since 2014 after it was first detected near Miami. The disease has since expanded across the state's entire reef tract and throughout the Caribbean region.

The disease targets roughly half of all Stony coral species found along the Florida reef tract, rapidly destroying their living tissue. Its unprecedented speed and wide range of vulnerable target species make it one of the deadliest marine outbreaks on record.

"We’ve lost a good deal of our living coral cover to this devastating disease, and we can’t replenish or restore the reef as quickly," said Dr. Sara Williams, a staff scientist with Mote’s Coral Health & Disease Research Program.

Sarasota laboratory breakthrough

What we know:

Mote Marine Laboratory researchers evaluated 154 distinct genetic types of mountainous star coral during their four-year research. Out of those tested, laboratory analyses confirmed that 12 specific genotypes demonstrated complete resistance to the deadly tissue disease. While others showed different levels of resistance. 

This discovery provides valuable information for active reef restoration initiatives by identifying exactly which coral strains possess the highest chance of long-term survival in the wild.

"What we can do is take the results from this study to inform which corals we put on the reef," Williams said. "That way, if we put more resistance corals out, hopefully those coral will survive the next wave of SCTL disease and continue to grow and build more resilient reefs."

Future reef restoration hurdles

What we don't know:

While identifying these 12 resilient genotypes and others to a varying degree marks a significant victory, scientists do not yet know the exact biological or genetic mechanisms that make these specific corals immune to the disease. Environmental factors like accelerating ocean acidification and extreme marine heat stress also continue to threaten the vulnerable reef systems, presenting challenges that immunity to a single disease cannot solve.

Mote Marine Laboratory is continuing their research. Dr. Williams and Mote Marine Laboratory collected more than 2,500 additional samples as part of an ongoing collaborative study with the NOAA AOML and the University of Miami.

"The primary end goal is that we now know that there is this set of corals that are resistant, so we can go ahead and scale those up in our restoration program and have reefs that are going to survive the next disease outbreak," Williams said.