Context

• A rapidly spreading disease commonly known as yellow band disease, is killing coral over vast stretches of the sea floor of the beautiful Samsae San Island in eastern Thailand.

Key Details Yellow Band Disease

• The colour of the corals turns yellow before they get destroyed.
• Scientists believe overfishing, pollution and rising water temperatures because of climate change may be making the reefs more vulnerable to yellow-band disease.

  

• It was first spotted decades ago and has caused widespread damage to the reefs in the Caribbean.
• Corals cannot remain alive when they are exposed to this yellow-band disease. They will die gradually.
• The reef is “like a forest” sustaining massive amounts of life, and its death could eventually impact humans too.
• They are rushing to find a treatment.
• Yellow-band disease is a bacterial infection that spreads over coral, causing the discolored bands of pale-yellow or white lesions along the surface of an infected coral colony.
• The lesions are the locations where the bacteria have killed the coral’s symbiotic photosynthetic algae, called zooxanthellae which are a major energy source for the coral.

Source; TH & Wikipedia

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