“Corals in danger, coastal protection chief warns” – Barbados Today 17Apr2024

Posted on April 19, 2024 by David Patriquin

“Barbados’ coral reefs are in serious trouble, even as officials try to restore their health and protect them from a deadly heat wave that has decimated them worldwide.

“Director of the Coastal Zone Management Unit (CZMU) Leo Brewster said his department in collaboration with the University of the West Indies has been closely monitoring the situation through a just-ended five-year coral reef survey.”

Coral bleaching, stony coral tissue loss disease, and groundwater pollution are cited as factors threatening coral health in Barbados.

Read more in Barbados Today

Posted in Extreme Warming/Coral Bleaching, Reef Health, SCTLD | Leave a comment

Brain corals at Bath on Barbados east coast appear free of disease 31Mar2024

Posted on March 31, 2024 by David Patriquin

Brain coral, Pseudodiploria clivosa, in the “Platform Lagoon” at Bath on Mar 28, 2024

With the collaboration of Dr. Elon Cadogan of CORALL Barbados, on Mar 28, 2024, I made a brief visit to Bath around the Low Tide when wave action is minimal and underwater visibility highest. One objective I had was  to examine the large brain corals in the “Platform Lagoon” to see if they had been affected by Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease which ravaged corals on the west coast beginning circa Nov 2022.

I postulated that as this site is flushed continuously with Atlantic ocean water coming from the east and should be comparatively free of water from other islands*, the corals would be SCTLD-free.
*While the general circulation is east to west, there is much greater chance of mixing with Caribbean water in the lee of the island, e.g., from flushing of bilges of large vessels in Bridgetown harbour – see Rosenau et al., 2021 – than on the east, Atlantic coast.

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Healthy Pillar Coral colony on Vauxhall Reef 23Mar2024

Posted on March 23, 2024 by David Patriquin

Pillar Coral in Reef Front zone of Vauxhall Reef, Mar 22, 2024. Pillar Coral in Reef fron zone of Vauxhall Reef, Mar 22, 2024. The species is considered Critically Endangered (U.S.)

It’s a rare day when I spend time at Vauxhall Reef and don’t find “something new” or get an especially good photo of a species I have been chasing for a while.

Today’s (Mar 22, 2024) find was an entirely healthy colony of Pillar Coral (Dendrogyra cylindrus) in the Reef Front zone.

There were a dozen plus healthy colonies of Pillar coral at Vauxhall prior to the arrival of SCTLD in 2023. Pillar coral is considered by AGGRA to be Highly Susceptible to SCTLD, and it seemed odd in early 2023 that these colonies remained healthy while there were seemingly many corals with SCTLD. However, all colonies of Pillar Coral I have seen to date this year (2024)  were entirely or mostly dead. So my secret hope that perhaps the pillar corals at Vauxhall had qualities, e.g. related to their associated microbes, that made them resistant to SCTLD was no more.

But now I can hope that there is something special about this one specimen! I will surely keep an eye on it, also on new growth on colonies killed by SCTLD
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First diseased P.clivosa  on Reef Flat at Vauxhall observed 10Mar2024

Posted on March 11, 2024 by David Patriquin

Healthy P. clivosa on the Reef Flat, Jan 15, 2024. Click on images for larger versions. More Pics

Large mounds of Pseudodiploria clivosa are common on the Reef Flat and Diploria-Palytoa zones at Vauxhall and can assume some quite striking, even majestic, forms.

I had not seen diseased Pseudodiploria clivosa amongst these big specimens  at Vauxhall until I viewed this large specimen on the Reef Flat  on Mar 10, 2024. It’s a large specimen,  located about 1/3rd of the distance out from shore to the Reef Crest area. It has  symptoms of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (view AGGRA Card).

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On Vauxhall Reef (Barbados) Millepora complanata but not M. alcicornis succumb to 2023 coral bleaching

Posted on March 8, 2024 by David Patriquin

Some good news: Millepora alcicornis on Vauxhall Reef was largely unaffected by the extreme warming events in the fall of 2023

Tom Goreau cited the Acropora and Millepora species as tho reef-building species most affected by extreme warming in the fall of 2023.

Both the “true” coral A prolifera and the coral-like hydrozoan  M. complanata occur, with the colonial  zoanthid  Palythoa caribeana, in the “A. prolifera Mother Colony Complex” at Vauxhall.

Both A prolifera and M. complanata were uniformly drab and covered with epiphytic growth when I viewed the colony on Jan 12, 2023, in sharp contrast to the vibrant colours of a year earlier (Palythoa caribeana was ‘normal’ in both years)  READ MORE

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Keep an eye out in Barbados for invasive “stoloniferous fire coral” 23Feb2024

Posted on February 23, 2024 by David Patriquin

Unomia solonifera. Source: Comité Científico FVAS on iNaturalist

As if Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease which took off in Barbados in 2023, followed by widespread coral bleaching associated with extreme warming  weren’t enough to challenge our reefs, now marine biologists in the Caribbean are on the lookout for an invasive soft coral originating from the Indo-Pacific.

It is Unomia stolonifera, commonly known as “stoloniferous fire coral”. It will grow over any hard substrate. Currently, it is socked in on reefs and seagrass beds on the northeastern coast of Venezuela, Southeastern Caribbean Sea. It is believed that Unomia stolonifera was introduced via the aquarium trade in the early 2000s.  It was first sighted in Venezuela at Valle Seco in 2007. Subsequently “the population has exploded along Venezuela’s coastline and has now been observed spreading east and west into the Caribbean Sea.” (icriforum.org, June 12, 2023) Continue reading →

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Complete dieback of Acropora prolifera (hybrid acroporoid coral) on Vauxhall Reef, Barbados in 2023 16Feb2024

Posted on February 16, 2024 by David Patriquin

Click on images for larger versions

The photos at left illustrate two A colonies by a large Diploria clivosa on the Reef Flat at Vauxhall. In the top photo, taken on Mar. 30, 2023, both colonies are entirely healthy.

In the bottom photo, taken on Jan 15, 2024, the two colonies are apparently totally dead and have a layer of fine algae and silt on them, much like the adjacent old coral bedrock.

There were no signs of any living tissue

On Jan 15, 2024,  I viewed 15 individual colonies in the Reef Flat Zone, 4 in the Diploria-Palythoa zone, and the “mother Colony” in the Reef Crest zone. All had the same appearance.

Evidently, there was 100% mortality or close to 100% of A. prolifera at Vauxhall between these two dates. It was likely associated with one or more of the extreme warming events in 2023.

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Sargassum outlook Jan 1, 2024 – Apr 1, 2024: “mild to moderate ” 5Jan2024

Posted on January 5, 2024 by admin

See also Coral Bleaching page,
re: high water temperatures/
coral bleaching summer-fall 2023
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Extracts from the latest Sargassum Sub-regional Outlook Bulletin:

“Synopsis: Sargassum abundance in the Central Atlantic is increasing and approaching the Caribbean region.”

“General outlook: Interests in the Eastern Caribbean should expect mild influxes during January and February and a resurgence to moderate levels during March.” Continue reading →

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“Making coral restoration Fun”: Barbados hosts an innovative approach to coral reef restoration 12 May2023

Posted on May 12, 2023 by admin

ReefVitalize is a new endeavour which, as I understand it from what I have read, seeks to help restore coral reefs while being self-sustaining economically and contributing to local well-being economically and socially.

The main activity of ReefVitalize is the coral frame building activity where a coral frame is getting built by the tourists, corals get attached to it, and then the frame is exposed to the reef. After six months to one year, the corals are getting exposed to the wild reef. The corals get taken off, and the frame can get reused for new corals, which means that there is a consistent cycle of taking young corals, growing them and moving them out to wild reefs. This is helping restore local ecosystems and entire reefs.

…ReefVitalize was founded in 2020, but due to Covid-19, operations were minimal until 2022. So far, the startup operates on two islands – the US Virgin Islands and Barbados.

Read more in Making coral restoration Fun by Heinrich et al. on AIM2flourish.com (accessed 12May2023)

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UPDATE same day: I suspected the ReefVitalize folks had contacted and were interacting with folks at CORALL; I was pleased to confirm that is so.

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AGRRA confirms presence of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease in Barbados 10May2023

Posted on May 8, 2023 by admin

Screen Captures from AGRRA Interactive Map for the whole region.  Below: on Feb 24 (Barbados purple).  Above:  on Nov 8 (Barbados red). Barbados lies  east of and upstream from the other islands of the Lesser Antilles.
Click on images for larger version

UPDATE 30 May, 2023: McGill students release their final report: Occurrence of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease on Vauxhall Reef and a Breakwater in the Folkstone Marine Protected Area of Barbados (28.7 MB)
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“Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) is a highly lethal coral disease that was first reported off the coast of Florida in 2014 and has since spread rapidly throughout the Caribbean. The disease affects over 20 coral species… The large geographic scale of this outbreak, high lethality of the disease lesion, and broad susceptibility among coral species make SCTLD unprecedented in its ecological impact, and likely make it the most deadly coral disease outbreak in history.” – Coral Disease Health Consortium (U.S, Government sponsored)

I have been on the lookout for this disease during annual visits  to Barbados in the Jan to March interval since I first learned about it in 2019 (view post Jul 9, 2019). I missed visiting Barbados in 2021 and 2022, but I observed possible cases early on in January of 2023 (view post Jan 25, 2023). I  submitted observations to the AGRRA Interactive Map/Database on SCTLD, 25 sets in total those  mostly on sites in the Folkestone MPA (Marine Protected Area) on the west coast.

Up until the time I left (April 7, 2023), the Barbados tag on this map was still coloured purple, meaning all Barbados observations remained under review. The tag was still purple on April 28th. However, on May 8 the tag had flipped to red, meaning enough evidence had accumulated to confirm the presence of SCTLD in Barbados.

Continue reading →

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