Pest Control

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Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just call Terminex or Truly Nolen, have them tent a reef here or there and solve our coral disease problems?  Well maybe some day there will be a mouse-earred boat.  That’s my wishful thinking, based on the new opinion paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution by Max Tepleitski and Kim Ritchie titled, “How feasible is the biological control of coral diseases?”  This paper discusses treatments like phage therapy and the application of probiotic native bacteria as well as coral immunity and quorum sensing in relation to disease.  You can find the article here and the abstract is below:

The worldwide decline of coral reefs necessitates the development of strategies aimed at controlling coral disease. As a result, various biological approaches are being considered as tools for coral disease management. For example, phage therapy has been shown to be effective in removing pathogens under laboratory conditions, showing promise for the treatment of specific pathogens; in addition, mutualistic bacteria compete with pathogens and produce antibiotics, properties that are both known to be important for biological control. Here we evaluate the probiotic potential of native mutualistic bacteria as a means of controlling coral diseases caused by opportunistic pathogens or their consortia. Monitoring native coral-associated microbiota for functions associated with resistance to pathogens could also serve as an additional indicator of reef health.