Fig 1.
Map of the study site (yellow box of the inset map), located at the Buck Island Reef National Monument in St. Croix, USVI.
The white circles represent colonies of Pseudodiploria spp. with BBD lesions (n = 72) that were tagged and used in this study.
Table 1.
Summary of treatments applied to Pseudodiploria spp. colonies with BBD between July 2020 and June 2021.
Table 2.
Summary of jute rope therapies and controls applied to Pseudodiploria spp. colonies with BBD in June 2021 and revisited one week post-treatment.
Fig 2.
Schematic representation of disease progression measurements collected from corals with active BBD.
The black lines represent three measurements taken (in cm) from the nail to the lesion of each colony. The cattle tag is used to identify and fate track the coral colony.
Table 3.
Description of CoralCure formulations tested against active BBD lesions on Pseudodiploria spp. colonies.
Fig 3.
Representative photos of Pseudodiploria strigosa colonies treated with ropes saturated in CoralCure.
(A) Colony #71 black band disease (BBD) lesion before treatment application, (B) A single CoralCure A rope applied to colony #71 BBD lesion, (C) Colony #38 BBD lesion before treatment application, (D) Two CoralCure D ropes applied side-by-side to colony #38 BBD lesion. The white arrows indicate a subset of staples used to hold the ropes in place.
Fig 4.
Mean progression (cm/month) of BBD in Pseudodiploria spp. exposed to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-based treatments [i.e., prototype, tooth whitening gel (gel) with and without marine epoxy and Base2B] or the Base2B (B2B) and amoxicillin (amox) treatment in July 2020 and the associated controls.
Corals were revisited in October 2020. Error bars represent standard error of the mean.
Fig 5.
Mean progression (cm/month) of black band disease (BBD) in Pseudodiploria spp. exposed to CoralCure A—C ointments, their respective rope treatments, or the Base2B (B2B) and amoxicillin (amox) treatment in October 2020.
Also shown is the mean progression of BBD in untreated (control) corals. Corals were revisited in January 2021. Error bars represent standard error of the mean.
Fig 6.
Mean disease progression of Pseudodiploria spp. treated with CoralCures D (n = 5), E (n = 5), and F ropes (n = 5), and untreated controls (n = 4).
Error bars are standard error of the mean, and letters denote significant differences. Disease progression was calculated as the difference in the amount of tissue loss that occurred from January—June 2021 averaged by month.
Table 4.
Presence/absence of active BBD lesions for each treatment upon revisit.
Fig 7.
Representative jute rope control.
Pseudodiploria strigosa with (A) an active BBD lesion prior to jute rope application, (B) two jute ropes applied to BBD lesion and apparently healthy tissue adjacent to lesion, (C) the same two ropes one week post-application (arrows denote BBD lesion moving under ropes), and (D) BBD lesion after rope removal (the white arrows indicate the location of the BBD lesion after rope removal, and the yellow arrows indicate the location of the BBD lesion at time of treatment).
Fig 8.
Time-series photographs of (A) a Pseudodiploria strigosa colony with active black band disease (BBD) treated with CoralCure D rope and of (B) an untreated P. strigosa with BBD. The black and white bars are each 10 cm in length.
Table 5.
Presence/absence of active BBD lesions for each treatment upon revisit.