Diversifying crop fields reduces pest abundance, study finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

Intercropping – the practice of planting mixtures of crops – can be an effective pest management tool worldwide, a new University of Florida study shows.

The analysis compiled results from 44 field studies across six continents and focused on four crop types – cabbage, squash, cotton and onion – planted on their own and mixed with a companion plant species. In these studies, scientists recorded 272 total occurrences of 35 different species of plant-eating insects on crops, representing one of the most comprehensive evaluations of intercropping effectiveness across the globe.

“Overall, intercropping proved to be very effective against pests, but it did vary based on the pest and their feed preferences,” said Philip Hahn, assistant professor in the UF/IFAS entomology and nematology department, who led the study. “It also depended on crop type, with cabbage and squashes showing the strongest resistance, while resistance was less strong for onions and cotton.”

There are a few common methods of intercropping. Sometimes non-cash crops are arranged in borders surrounding the field to repel or intercept pests before they damage the cash crop. Companion plants can also be planted within the field to disrupt pests from locating the main crops. A common combination is known as the Three Sisters: corn, squash and beans. Another of this study’s findings was that interspersed planting schemes, like the Three Sisters, make it more difficult for the pests to locate their preferred host plant and were more effective than border plantings.

“In the studies we examined, we found intercropping was more effective for generalist pests that feed on a variety of crops,” Hahn said. “Specialist pests that target one type of crop were less affected.” Specialist pests usually have a long history of co-evolution with the plants they target and therefore may be less influenced by the presence of a neighboring companion plant.

Researchers have long been interested in studying the value of intercropping systems, providing an abundance of previously published data. Hahn included studies from those earlier analyses, plus more recent studies, which allowed for a comprehensive evaluation of the conditions that best promote the benefits of intercropping.

While variability proved to be a common thread across studies, Hahn noted that a geographical pattern arose, however weakly.

“We did find a stronger benefit for pest suppression at lower latitudes – so, in tropical systems versus northern temperate systems,” Hahn said. “There are lots of reasons we could have found that pattern, of course; the tropics are places where there tend to be more species of insects year-round. It was surprising that the pattern was not as strong as I would have expected.”

This analysis will likely inform future investigations, Hahn said, as neighboring plant selections could be the key to success in intercropping systems. The new research provides recommendations for piecing together the most effective companion plantings, while also highlighting pairs that seem to be less effective.

“There are a few combinations that seem to be particularly effective at reducing pest abundance,” Hahn said. “Overall, for growers interested in organic methods, intercropping seems to be a very effective tool.”

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and co-authored by Joseph Cammarano, a University of Florida graduate student. It is available now at doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14382.

 

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JOURNAL

Journal of Applied Ecology

DOI

10.1111/1365-2664.14382 

ARTICLE TITLE

Environmental context and herbivore traits mediate the strength of associational effects in a meta-analysis of crop diversity

Disruption from war in Ukraine pushes highly contagious infectious diseases to alarming levels

Reports and Proceedings

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

• Analysis of official Ukraine health data reveals a perfect storm of rising infectious diseases cases and falling levels of childhood vaccination and case detection in the frontline eastern region of Kharkiv.
• Between January and September 2022, new cases of rubella were 23 times higher among children living in the Kharkiv region than average rates across Ukraine, while shigellosis (diarrhoeal disease) and viral meningitis incidence was around 6 times higher, and whooping cough 5 times greater.
• But registration of infectious disease cases halved in Kharkiv hospital suggesting these figures most likely are an underestimate of the true situation.
• Routine childhood vaccination coverage also fell to less than 50% across the region.
• Findings highlight the urgent need to strengthen medical support in the regions of Ukraine where active hostilities are taking place, researchers say.

 

**Note: the release below is a special early release from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2023, Copenhagen, 15-18 April). Please credit the congress if you use this story**

Embargo: 2301H UK time Wednesday 5 April  

 

**Note – the press release is available in Spanish and Portuguese, see links below**

 

New research being presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Copenhagen, Denmark (15-18 April), reveals an extremely worrying picture of rising infectious diseases cases and falling levels of childhood vaccination and case detection in the eastern region of Ukraine in the city of Kharkiv and Kharkiv region, the scene of some of the most intense combat in 2022.

 

The research by Maryna Railian and Tetyana Chumachenko from Kharkiv National Medical University (KhNMU), Ukraine, examines how fierce fighting in the Kharkiv region, which was under attack from the first minutes of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and continues to be under rocket and artillery fire, significantly disrupted access to medical care, routine vaccinations, and the response to infectious disease outbreaks.

 

They analysed official data from the State Institution Kharkiv Oblast Center for Disease Control and Prevention of the Ministry of Health to assesses infectious disease incidence and vaccination coverage for the population in the Kharkiv region across 9 months of 2022.

 

Between January and September, 124,170 infectious disease cases were registered in the Kharkiv region—40% less than during the same period before the war in 2021 (207,038 infectious disease cases).

 

Official data also suggests that the total percentage of the population exposed to infectious diseases decreased by 1.7 times compared to the same period in 2021. And the proportion of children affected by infectious diseases fell from 29% in 2021 to 23% in 2022.

 

Nevertheless, new cases of shigellosis, a highly contagious diarrhoeal disease, were 3 times higher in the Kharkiv region than average rates across Ukraine. Similarly, new cases of rubella (German measles) were 11 times higher than the Ukraine average, whooping cough 5 times higher and viral meningitis 2 times higher (for number of cases, see figure in notes to editors).

 

Additionally, new cases of viral hepatitis A in the region exceeded the country average by 2.4%, viral hepatitis B by 87%, and chronic viral hepatitis B and C combined by 72%.

 

“During this period, only severe forms of infections and diseases with a pronounced clinical picture were recorded,” explains Railian. “These data underscore the unfavourable epidemic situation that arose during the hostilities and partial occupation of the Kharkiv region. Mild cases were not registered or isolated and continued to be sources of infection, exacerbating the spread of diseases.”

 

Similar patterns were seen in children, with shigellosis and viral meningitis incidence around 6 times higher in the Kharkiv region compared to the Ukraine average, rubella incidence 23 times higher, and new cases of whooping cough 5 times greater than the country average.

 

“The shockingly high incidence of highly contagious infectious diseases in the Kharkiv region compared to Ukraine as a whole reflects the appalling living conditions across the region where water supply interruptions were common and residents were unable to buy even basic healthy foods,” says Railian. “The widespread damage and destruction to infrastructure and atrocious living conditions meant much of the population had to be relocated for their safety.”

 

The analysis also found that the ongoing crisis has had dramatic effects on routine childhood vaccination coverage across the Kharkiv region, putting the most vulnerable at increased risk of severe illness and death. Between January and September 2022, the rate of polio vaccination fell to 40%, hepatitis B to just 37%, tuberculosis to 43%, measles, mumps and rubella to 50%, and diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus to 46% (and only 24% in the adult population).

 

However, the authors caution that given the lack of disease surveillance and public health infrastructure available for diagnosis, the true burden of infectious disease remains unknown.

Worryingly, the authors say that this might be just the tip of the iceberg. “The upsurge in measles and other vaccine-preventable infectious diseases could soon become uncontrollable. The stark reality is that in the absence of surveillance, diagnostic, and preventive measures, these figures most likely represent an underestimate of the true situation,” says Railian.

 

Infectious disease case detection has halved

 

Further analyses examining the impact of the war on infectious disease surveillance capacity in Kharkiv Hospital, reveals that the case detection rate is only half of that prior to the war. Between January and October 2021, 2,306 infectious disease cases were registered, this declined to 1,056 reports during the same period in 2022, with just 31 cases registered from March to August 2022.

 

The hospital in the capital city of the Kharkiv region provides medical care to almost 17,000 adults in 25 medical specialties.

 

Worse still, infectious illness in the hospital wasn’t registered in full, with almost two-thirds of cases left without laboratory results between January and October in 2022, and three-quarters of cases not given a final diagnosis.

 

“Because of the hostilities, medical staff could not get to work and large numbers of workers responsible for registration of cases left the country,” explains Railian. “Our findings underscore the urgent need to strengthen medical support in the regions of Ukraine where active hostilities are taking place. We must prioritise field vaccination teams in populated areas and health education campaigns to highlight the growing threats of infectious diseases.”

 

For interviews with the report authors, please contact Maryna Railian, Kharkiv National Medical University (KhNMU), Kharkiv, Ukraine E) railyan77@gmail.com  T) +380 509 340 323

 

Alternative contact in the ECCMID Press Room: Tony Kirby T) + 44(0)7834 385827 E) tony@tonykirby.com

 

Notes to editors:

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

The study was funded by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine in the framework of the research project 0123U100184 on the topic “Analysis of the impact of war and its consequences on the epidemic process of widespread infections on the basis of information technologies”.

This press release is based on abstracts 3400 and 3406 at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) annual meeting. The material has been peer reviewed by the congress selection committee. There is no full paper available at this stage and, as this is an early release from ECCMID, the poster is not yet available. The work has not yet been submitted to a medical journal for publication.

 

Adult infections	Kharkiv region		Ukraine
	January – September 2022		January – September 2022
	Absolute number	per 100,000 population	Absolute number	per 100,000 population
shigellosis	34	1.3	176	0.42
rubella (German measles)	3	0.11	6	0.014
whooping cough	5	0.19	17	0.04
viral meningitis	1	0.15	30	0.072
viral hepatitis A	11	0.42	171	0.41
viral hepatitis B	44	1.68	371	0.90
Chronic viral hepatitis	348	13.29	3,194	7.71

 

 

This press release is based on abstracts 3400 and 3406 at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) annual meeting. The material has been peer reviewed by the congress selection committee. A full paper has been submitted to a medical journal and is currently under review but not available at this stage and, as this is an early release from ECCMID, the posters are not yet available.

For press release in Spanish, click here

For press release in Portuguese, click here

Twitter (for when embargo lifts): @escmid #ECCMID2023

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ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

5-Apr-2023

Defects can be good and help combat climate change

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TATA INSTITUTE OF FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH

 

IMAGE: “DEFECTS TUNE THE STRONG METAL–SUPPORT INTERACTIONS”, A UNIQUE APPROACH TO DESIGN CO2 REDUCTION NANOCATALYST WITH EXCELLENT EFFICIENCY AND STABILITY. view more 

CREDIT: MR. RAJESH BELGAMWAR AND PROF. VIVEK POLSHETTIWAR

The heavy use of fossil fuels for driving industrial processes and human activities has resulted in increasingly excessive emissions of anthropogenic CO2 into our atmosphere, surpassing the 400 ppm level. This exceedingly high concentration of atmospheric CO2 has led to a series of negative consequences for our planet’s climate system. However, CO2 can be a strategic carbon resource for synthesizing valued chemicals and fuels. There have been numerous reports of noble metal catalysts, but their application was limited due to their moderate catalytic performance and high cost. In the non-noble metal catalyst family, Cu-based catalysts are among the most versatile, with good potential in many industrial processes. Unfortunately, the low Tammann temperature of copper and the resulting surface migration causes nanoparticles to sinter during the reaction, limiting their activity and long-term stability.

In this work, a Team of researchers led by Prof. Vivek Polshettiwar at ​Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, asked the question, how to improve the catalytic activity and stability of Cu-catalyst using the concept of strong metal support interactions (SMSI) and defect sites cooperativity?

They reported a catalyst with active copper sites loaded on titanium oxide-coated dendritic fibrous nanosilica (DFNS/TiO2-Cu) for CO2 to CO conversion. The fibrous morphology and high surface area of DFNS/TiO2 allowed better dispersion and high loading of Cu NPs active sites. This catalyst showed excellent catalytic performance for CO2 reduction with CO productivity of 5350 mmol g−1 h−1 (i.e., 53506 mmol gCu−1 h−1), superior to all copper-based thermal catalysts. Notably, DFNS/TiO2-Cu10 showed 99.8% selectivity towards CO and was stable for at least 200 hours. The defect-controlled strong metal-support interactions between Cu and TiO2 kept the copper nanoparticles firmly anchored on the surface of the support and imparted excellent catalyst stability.

The EELS studies, in-situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy, H2-temperature-programmed reduction, density functional theory calculations, and long-term stability indicated that there was a strong interaction between copper sites and the Ti3+ sites, which ensured good stability and dispersion of the active copper sites. In-situ studies provided insights into the role of defect sites (Ti3+ and O-vacancies) in tuning SMSI. In-situ time-resolved Fourier transform infrared indicated that CO2 did not directly dissociate to form CO, while the in-situ Raman and in-situ UV-DRS study demonstrated that the intensity of the oxygen vacancies and Ti3+ centers gradually decreased after introducing CO2 gas into the reactor chamber and progressively increased when exposed to hydrogen. This indicated that CO2 to CO conversion followed a redox pathway assisted by hydrogen.

Excellent catalytic performance of DFNS/TiO2-Cu and in-situ mechanistic studies indicated the potential of defects in tuning the strong metal-support interactions. This approach may lead to the design of catalytic systems using various active sites and defective supports. 

 

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JOURNAL

Journal of the American Chemical Society

DOI

10.1021/jacs.3c01336 

ARTICLE TITLE

Defects Tune the Strong Metal–Support Interactions in Copper Supported on Defected Titanium Dioxide Catalysts for CO2 Reduction

Can probiotics cure Florida’s ailing coral reefs? Tests show it works on devastating disease

Coral Reef and Tropical Fish (Shutterstock www.shutterstock.com)

2023/04/07
MIAMI — On a coral reef, white is the color of death.

So when researchers see a flash of bone white amid the riot of colorful corals, fish and sea creatures, they know something is wrong. If it’s all white, the coral likely bleached to death in the steamy hot seas. But if it’s a patch of white surrounded by the raggedy brown edges of living coral tissue, they know the most devastating coral disease in the Caribbean has likely struck.

Stony coral tissue loss disease is a new and deadly disease affecting reefs throughout the Caribbean. Unlike other coral diseases, it affects more than 20 species, and it kills fast — sometimes within a matter of days.

But after nearly a decade of devastating losses, scientists finally have some good news. They have found at least one way to fight back, and they’re already testing it on Florida’s reefs.

A new paper published in the journal Communications Biology found that applying probiotic bacteria — yes, similar to the kind in your yogurt — to corals could prevent the disease, or even reverse some of its symptoms.

“We think about probiotics for our food, but this is probiotics for the reef,” said Julie Meyer, an assistant professor at the University of Florida’s department of soil, water and ecosystem sciences and one of the authors of the study, published Thursday.
One healthy coral leads to more

Scientists first discovered the beneficial bacteria a few years back during an experiment where researchers tried to infect healthy corals with the disease to understand how it spread. But one coral just wouldn’t get sick.

Bacteria cultured off of that one coral eventually turned into whole tanks of bacteria, which scientists turned into a paste and started smearing on sick corals. It worked.

Next up were field trials in corals off the coast of Fort Lauderdale and Marathon, in the Keys. Scientists used two methods, sticking the paste on individual corals or dropping a big weighted bag over the colony, pumping in liquid bacterial cultures, and letting the whole thing marinate for a few hours.

Both methods worked, Meyer said, just not as well as they did in the lab.

“In the lab, it’s very effective. In the environment, it’s harder to say because there’s so many variables going on,” she said.

However, scaling up this solution may prove difficult. Florida has hundreds of miles of reef tract, spotted with tens of thousands of sick corals. Tending to each one with a tub of paste, or even the weighted bag, is slow work.

“It’s manpower limitation. It’s a lot of work to go out there and hand-apply this stuff,” she said.

Still, Meyer said her research team is excited at the possibilities shown in this research. For nearly a decade, researchers have been throwing everything they could at these corals — even, she said, essential oils.

So far, the most promising advance has come from antibiotics. Scientists have been successfully using amoxicillin (the same stuff humans get for bacterial infections) to treat sick corals for a few years.

But scientists are worried that using too many antibiotics could create an antibiotic-resistant strain of the disease, and they’re trying to move away from using medicines that humans rely on.

“We don’t want to build that resistance when we need to use it ourselves,” Meyer said.
Born in Miami

While much about the disease is still a mystery, scientists are sure of a few things.

They know it was first spotted off Virginia Key in 2014 and quickly raced around the Caribbean. It was devastating. Research from Nova Southeastern University found that at least four species of coral in Florida lost 98% or more of their living tissue to the disease.

Die-off from this disease peaked in Florida around 2016, but it’s still on the move.

In 2021, stony coral tissue loss disease reached the final untouched pocket of Florida: the Dry Tortugas in the Keys. And just this week, scientists recorded a sighting of a sick coral all the way across the Caribbean, in Curacao.

While research hasn’t fingered a specific culprit for the spread of the disease, one of the leading theories is contaminated ballast water from cruise and cargo ships. Miami is the busiest cruise port in the world, and the spread of the disease throughout the Caribbean reflects popular cruising routes.

“When it arrives in a new location it’s around the port areas, and it doesn’t follow ocean currents or anything,” Meyer said.

But so far, no government has asked cruise or cargo ships to alter their behavior to potentially slow the spread of the disease.

And while this new research represents some success in the fight against the spread of stony coral tissue loss disease, researchers said that saving Florida’s beleaguered coral reefs requires hitting all of the problems they’re facing at once, like coral bleaching, ocean acidification and wastewater spills, which are all worsened by climate change.

That’s because each of those factors makes coral weaker and more stressed out, Meyer said, and more susceptible to disease.

“In general, we kind of have to diminish all the stresses on corals in Florida,” she said.

© Miami Herald

Newly discovered probiotic could protect Caribbean corals threatened by deadly, devastating disease

New treatment offers an alternative to antibiotic treatment, reducing risk of resistant pathogenic bacteria

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SMITHSONIAN

 

IMAGE: A CLOSE-UP OF EXTENDED POLYPS OF AN APPARENTLY HEALTHY GREAT STAR CORAL COLONY (MONTASTRAEA CAVERNOSA) 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 (SYMBIODINIACEAE) THAT LIVE IN THE CORAL TISSUES. RESEARCHERS WITH THE SMITHSONIAN’S NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY HAVE DISCOVERED THE FIRST EFFECTIVE BACTERIAL PROBIOTIC FOR TREATING AND PREVENTING STONY CORAL TISSUE LOSS DISEASE (SCTLD), A MYSTERIOUS AILMENT THAT HAS DEVASTATED FLORIDA’S CORAL REEFS SINCE 2014 AND IS RAPIDLY SPREADING THROUGHOUT THE CARIBBEAN. THE PROBIOTIC TREATMENT, DESCRIBED IN A PAPER PUBLISHED TODAY IN COMMUNICATIONS BIOLOGY, PROVIDES AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE USE OF THE BROAD-SPECTRUM ANTIBIOTIC AMOXICILLIN, WHICH HAS SO FAR BEEN THE ONLY PROVEN TREATMENT FOR THE DISEASE BUT WHICH RUNS THE RISK OF PROMOTING ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT BACTERIA. view more 

CREDIT: VALERIE PAUL

Researchers with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History have discovered the first effective bacterial probiotic for treating and preventing stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), a mysterious ailment that has devastated Florida’s coral reefs since 2014 and is rapidly spreading throughout the Caribbean.

The probiotic treatment, described in a paper published today in Communications Biology, provides an alternative to the use of the broad-spectrum antibiotic amoxicillin, which has so far been the only proven treatment for the disease but which runs the risk of promoting antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

SCTLD afflicts at least two dozen species of so-called hard corals, which provide essential habitat for innumerable fishes and marine animals of economic and intrinsic value while also helping to defend coastlines from storm damage. Since its discovery in Florida in 2014, cases of SCTLD have been confirmed in at least 20 countries. The precise cause of the malady remains unknown but once a coral is infected, its colony of polyps can die within weeks.

“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.”

Paul has been studying coral reefs for decades, but she said she decided to go “all in” on SCTLD in 2017 because it was so deadly, so poorly understood and spreading so fast.

While probing how the disease is spread, Paul and a team including researchers from the University of Florida discovered that some fragments of great star coral (Montastraea cavernosa) swiftly developed SCTLD’s characteristic lesions and died, but other pieces never got sick at all. 

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.

For this reason, the researchers collected samples of the naturally occurring, non-pathogenic bacteria present on a pair of disease-resistant great star coral fragments for further testing. With these samples, the research team aimed to identify what, if any, naturally occurring microorganisms were protecting some great star corals from SCTLD.       

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 team then conducted chemical and genetic analyses to discover the compounds behind McH1-7’s antibiotic properties and the genes behind those compounds’ production. Finally, the researchers tested McH1-7 with live pieces of great star coral. These lab trials provided the final bit of decisive proof: McH1-7 stopped or slowed the progression of the disease in 68.2% of 22 infected coral fragments and even more notably prevented the sickness from spreading in all 12 transmission experiments, something antibiotics are unable to do.

Going forward, Paul said there is a need to work on improved delivery mechanisms if this probiotic is going to be used at scale in the field. Currently, the primary method of applying this coral probiotic is to essentially wrap the coral in a plastic bag to create a mini aquarium and then inject the helpful bacteria. Perhaps even more importantly, Paul said it remains to be seen whether the bacterial strain isolated from the great star coral will have the same curative and prophylactic effects for other species of coral.

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. 

“Between ocean acidification, coral bleaching, pollution and disease there are a lot of ways to kill coral,” Paul said. “We need to do everything we can to help them so they don’t disappear.”

This interdisciplinary research is part of the museum’s new Ocean Science Center, which aims to consolidate museum’s marine research expertise and vast collections into a collaborative center to expand understanding of the world’s oceans and enhance their conservation.

This research was supported by funding from the Smithsonian, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institutes of Health.

The remaining live tissue on this great star coral colony (Montastraea cavernosa) in Florida is being destroyed by stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD). The bright white margin surrounding the dark brown, living coral tissue is where the coral is bleaching and dying due to the disease. SCTLD afflicts at least two dozen species of so-called hard corals, which provide essential habitat for innumerable fishes and marine animals of economic and intrinsic value while also helping to defend coastlines from storm damage. Since its discovery in Florida in 2014, cases of SCTLD have been confirmed in at least 20 countries. The precise cause of the malady remains unknown but once a coral is infected, its colony of polyps can die within weeks. Researchers with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History have discovered the first effective bacterial probiotic for treating and preventing SCTLD, a mysterious ailment that has devastated Florida’s coral reefs since 2014 and is rapidly spreading throughout the Caribbean.

A close look at a piece of diseased great star coral (Montastraea cavernosa) that is cut and ready for testing and treatment in an aquarium. The white coral skeleton on the left shows where two coral polyps have already died from stony coral tissue loss disease (SCLTD). Researchers with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History have discovered the first effective bacterial probiotic for treating and preventing SCTLD, a mysterious ailment that has devastated Florida’s coral reefs since 2014 and is rapidly spreading throughout the Caribbean. While probing how the disease is spread, the research team discovered that some fragments of great star coral swiftly developed SCTLD’s characteristic lesions and died, but other pieces never got sick at all. 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. For this reason, the researchers collected samples of the naturally occurring, non-pathogenic bacteria present on a pair of disease-resistant great star coral fragments for testing. With these samples, the research team aimed to identify what, if any, naturally occurring microorganisms were protecting some great star corals from SCTLD.

CREDIT

Kelly Pitts

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JOURNAL

Communications Biology

DOI

10.1038/s42003-023-04590-y 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Chemical and genomic characterization of a potential probiotic treatment for stony coral tissue loss disease

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Apr-2023

Tools for coral gardening at the landscape scale

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (KAUST)

 

VIDEO: LEARN HOW KAUST MARINE SCIENTISTS ARE HELPING TO RESTORE CORAL REEFS. view more 

CREDIT: © 2023 KAUST.

A toolkit for environmentally friendly and cost-effective coral restoration could accelerate the recovery of degraded reefs along the coast of Saudi Arabia and beyond.

Coral reefs support around 30 percent of marine wildlife and provide invaluable ecosystem services, such as fishing, tourism and coastal protection. But these vital habitats are rapidly disappearing.

Despite international climate agreements to reduce carbon emissions and limit global warming, scientists fear that coral reefs have passed a tipping point and will continue declining even under the most optimistic climate scenarios. “We have lost roughly one-third of global coral cover in the last 50 years,” says marine scientist Sebastian Schmidt-Roach, “and we urgently need active measures to mitigate further decline.”

Coral restoration could now be the best line of defense, but progress has been limited by the cost and labor intensity of working in marine environments. Current restoration and coral gardening, or “reefscaping,” projects tend to be small, covering just 500 square meters on average. “We need to target areas of thousands of square kilometers,” says evolutionary biologist Manuel Aranda. “One way to do this is through selective breeding of more resilient corals so that we do not have to restore every reef ourselves, but rather leave some resilient colonies to do the job for us.” 

To help achieve industrial-scale coral restoration, the Coral Hub team, including Carlos Duarte and Charlotte Hauser, have created MaritechtureTM –  a suite of tools for transporting selectively bred corals from the lab to the reef[1].

The patented system includes tiles that act as a substrate for growing corals: stackable crates to which the tiles can be attached, and MaritechtureTM Reef Nails that will not enable quick attachment of the tiles to natural reef substrates. For reef surfaces where nails won’t work, they created MaritechtureTM Coral Pods – freestanding limestone structures consisting of two plates that interlink to create a four-legged “pod” with a large surface area for attaching tiles or coral fragments.  

The researchers calculate that a team of six divers could deploy 90 pods, creating up to 250 square meters of reefscape in half a day. The coral tiles are microchipped so researchers can see what works where and what does not. “Interestingly, our structures have already attracted a lot of natural coral settlement,” adds Schmidt-Roach, a promising sign that these artificial reefs could self-colonize. 

Designed in collaboration with artist Julian Charrière, the objects are inspired by the 20th century German Bauhaus style of simple yet functional shapes and rational materials. “Their simple design enables flexibility and low-cost and easy application across different habitats, including in developing nations” says Schmidt-Roach.

“We have tried to minimize the use of plastics and metals. Limestone is a natural reef-like material with significantly less carbon emissions than conventional steel- or cement-based solutions,” Schmidt-Roach explains. Where necessary, the team uses acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, a nontoxic and recyclable plastic that does not degrade in water. 

KAUST has announced that MaritechtureTM technologies will provide the backbone of their ambitious Reefscape Restoration Project at Shushah, which Schmidt-Roach’s team initially planned and won funding for. At 100 hectares, this is the world’s largest restoration project to date. MaritechtureTM will soon be commercialized by the team’s start-up Ocean Revive. “We are continually exploring new sustainable materials and nature-based solutions at the interface between science, art and technology,” adds Schmidt-Roach.

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Marine Science

DOI

10.3389/fmars.2023.1110830 

ARTICLE TITLE

Novel infrastructure for coral gardening and reefscaping

Sebastian Schmidt-Roach (left) and Professor Manuel Aranda (right) inspect the health of their sample coralspecimens growing on their patented Maritechture structure.

The different components needed for building the Maritechture structure, including acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, a nontoxic and recyclable plastic that does not degrade in water.

CREDIT

© 2023 KAUST; Eliza Mkhitaryan.