Yellow Band Disease

Why in News?

• It is recently reported that a rapidly spreading disease, commonly known as yellow band disease, is killing corals over vast stretches of the sea floor of Thailand.

Highlights

• Scientists believe overfishing, pollution and rising water temperatures because of climate change may be making the reefs more vulnerable to yellow-band disease.
• Yellow-band disease – named for the colour it turns corals before destroying them -was first spotted decades ago and has caused widespread damage to reefs in the Caribbean. There is no known cure.
• The Yellow Band disease Is caused by a combination of environmental stressors, including increased water temperatures, pollution, and sedimentation, as well as increased competition for space from other organisms.
• These factors can weaken the coral and make it more susceptible to infection by pathogens, such as bacteria and fungi.
• The disease’s Impact cannot be reversed, unlike the effects of coral bleaching.
• Corals are marine invertebrates belonging to the class Anthozoa in the phylum Cnidaria.
• They typically live in compact colonies of many identical individual polyps.
• Coral reefs are underwater ecosystems made up of colonies of coral polyps.
• Coral polyps live in a symbiotic relationship with a variety of photosynthetic algae called zooxanthellae, which live within their tissues.
• These algae provide the coral with energy through photosynthesis, while the coral provides the algae with a protected environment and compounds, they need for growth.