Coral reefs.

In a vast blue wilderness,
they are the cities of the sea.

These rich, biodiverse
ecosystems are hot spots
for marine life and
warriors at protecting

shorelines from storms.

They cover 1% of
the ocean floor,

but they're actually
home or hosts to about
25% of marine species.

Coral reefs are also the
economic driver behind many
economies around the world.

They provide a critical food
source for millions of people.

The Florida Reef Tract provides
over 70,000 local jobs and
is estimated to be worth over

six billion dollars
to our state economy.

They say there's only one
Everglades, but there's also
only one Florida Reef Tract and

it's a really special place.

Like most coral reefs around
the world, the Florida Reef
Tract has declined over the past

few decades.

Fishing pressures, pollution,
development, and climate change
have all left their mark.

Now, a new disease may be
the last nail in the coffin.

They're stressed and they
get diseased, they're
more susceptible to it.

This disease is unprecedented
in its scale, its size and
its effect on coral reefs in

the Florida Reef Tract.

We're kind of up against
these ticking time bombs
of losing corals every day,

and trying to implement the
best strategies that we have,

while simultaneously trying
to develop new ideas.

What is this disease?

What are scientists doing
to prevent the spread -
and will it be enough?

Major funding for this program
was provided by the Batchelor
Foundation, encouraging people

to preserve and protect
America's underwater resources.

And by The William J. &
Tina Rosenberg Foundation,
The Do Unto Others Trust,
and by the following.

It all began in
Southeast Florida...

In 2013, researchers here
at Nova Southeastern were
conducting monitoring
of the reef systems

and they noticed a white disease
pop up in some of the corals.

And it was just one site
in Broward County, one
site in Dade County.

Unlike other diseases that
may concentrate in small areas
and often disappear with the

change of seasons,
this one continued.

It reached the northern extent
of the Florida Reef Tract in
2016 in Martin County and it

first appeared in the
Florida Keys National
Marine Sanctuary in 2016.

And we believe because of its
rapid movement that it was
following the water currents and

is a waterborne disease.

By early 2019, the disease
had reached Key West.

Corals can show signs
that they're sick a
couple of different ways.

They can be pale and
bleached, which suggests
that they're stressed
and they're losing their

symbiotic algae that
live inside the tissue.

The coral can still be alive
and recover from the bleaching
if the stress that caused it

is removed.

Or they can lose their tissue
over time, and this disease
can show both of those signs,

but predominantly it's
the sloughing off of
tissue of the coral animal
leaving just exposed

white skeleton.

Experts named it "Stony
Coral Tissue Loss Disease"
because of how it manifests in

hard coral species.

Reef building corals are what
are called stony corals mainly
because they produce a limestone

skeleton.

We have about 45 hard coral
species on the Florida Reef
Tract and we estimate at least

half of those are
susceptible to this disease.

It actually affects more
species than any other coral
disease that's been reported to

date within the Florida
Keys Reef Tract.

Scientists say once the
disease emerges in a new area,

it affects anywhere from 50 to
100% of the stony corals there.

After a coral is infected,
it will likely die
within one to six months.

Experts of varying backgrounds
are collaborating to study
this unprecedented disease.

One of them is Dr. Brian Walker,
who has spent most of his
career mapping the seafloor and

describing reef habitats
off southeast Florida, prior
to the disease outbreak.

When I first started doing my
mapping work, there wasn't a
lot of knowledge about the

extent of the reef system
and how far north it
went and habitat types.

While studying the underwater
topography, Brian discovered
nearly 300 giant boulder

corals that are over six
feet in diameter, estimated
to be up to 300 years old.

About half of them are dead and
we don't know when they died.

Could have been previous stress
events, could have been early
in the century or just a few

years ago.

To avoid losing the remaining
living boulder corals to Stony
Coral Tissue Loss Disease,

Brian and his team switched
their focus to monitoring and
treating the infected corals.

We've been using a specific
epoxy that was tested through
researchers in the past that

they found was effective.

And that allows us to mix
chlorine and the epoxy together
underwater and then apply it.

It will kill the tissue
on immediate contact,
so that we are removing
that diseased tissue

from the environment.

As a backup we create this
trench in the healthy-looking
live tissue of the
coral, that we fill with

epoxy with chlorine as a
break between the healthy live
tissue and the diseased tissue.

So, if that diseased
tissue spreads beyond
the margin treatment,
it will hopefully only

spread to that point,
to that trench.

Our treatments have been between
40 and 60 percent effective
at stopping the disease

progression across the coral
once it's been infected.

But we can't stop the coral
from getting disease in another
location and so it requires this

constant effort and monitoring.

While Brian and his team
work towards protecting
the large boulder corals
in Broward County,

his colleague, Dr. Karen
Neely, focuses on the affected
species in the Florida Keys.

Looe Key is one of the jewels
of the Florida Reef Tract, it
was protected even before the

Florida Keys National
Marine Sanctuary came in.

You have really high
coral cover and really
beautiful reef structure.

It's really hard to watch that
reef currently in decline and
see all of the devastation

that's happening because of
this tissue loss disease.

My main research goal
right now is looking at
intervention strategies.

Is there anything we can do
to treat affected corals or to
protect unaffected corals that

might give them a chance to
survive through this disease
event and still be there at the

end to help repopulate and
restore the reefs in the future?

A lot of the efforts that
we have to address this
disease are trial and error.

We basically do things
in a laboratory and
see whether it works.

And then we have to pilot
in the field and look
at first, whether it
works and then second,

what sort of implications
that has for the corals we're
trying to treat, as well as the

other organisms on that
reef system, before we
make a decision to move
forward with something

that's done on a larger scale.

What we're primarily working
with now is antibiotic delivery.

And what we're trying to do with
that is maximize delivery to
the coral, minimizing delivery

to the water column and
also creating basically
a time release mechanism.

Two of the methods that we
are trying for antibiotic
delivery right now are
both pastes that we

can smear onto the
disease margin.

One of these is basic shea
butter and it's easy to get,
it's relatively cheap, and it's

something that we can use
pretty easily in the field to
deliver this drug to the coral.

Another potential method that
we've been working with comes
from a company that is based out

of Tampa.

Actively treating the disease
isn't the only way Karen is
trying to help save Florida's

iconic coral reefs.

Together with Keys Marine Lab
Deputy Director Dr. Cindy Lewis,
Karen's been rescuing threatened

pillar corals from the
reef since 2016, before
the Stony Coral Tissue
Loss Disease reached

the area.

Pillar coral is very near
and dear to my heart.

It's the only coral anywhere
in the world that grows these
big columns or cylinders

that can be 10 feet tall and
sometimes two feet in diameter.

It's one of the few
species that has its
polyps out during the day.

So, it looks very fuzzy and
fluffy, not just at night.

The pillar coral only occurs
in the Caribbean and it's
considered threatened because of

its low abundance, its
susceptibility to disease
and its sensitivity to

changing environmental
stressors.

And there are only about
160 genotypes that we
identified on the reef.

So, think of that like the last
160 or so people on this planet.

And not only that, they
only occurred at about
150 different sites.

So, think of that as 160 people
living in 150 different towns.

So, they were spread out across
the reef, very low genetic
diversity, and because we

were losing them from these
bleaching events and subsequent
disease, we realized that we

needed to bring some of
this genetic material
in to these protected
on-shore nurseries, like

we have here at Keys Marine Lab.

Each pillar coral is assigned a
unique number so experts have a
record of where it was collected

and what condition it
was in at the time.

Meanwhile, they continue to
monitor the status of all
the remaining pillar corals

in the wild.

We've lost, you know, well more
than 50 percent of the genetics

out on the reef,
they're extinct now.

And many of them are only held
now in the onshore nurseries.

Preserving each and
every genotype is really
important for preserving
that genetic diversity

that we can use in the future.

To save the population,
scientists are rearing
pillar corals in captivity.

In the summer of 2018, 69
different coral fragments of 27
different genotypes were being

cared for at the
Keys Marine Lab.

They spawned in the tanks,
males and females, that probably
haven't seen each other in maybe

centuries, and we have 30 brand
new babies and that means 30 new
genotypes in this population.

The success of the Pillar
Coral Rescue Project
came at the ideal time.

Now, the staff at the
Keys Marine Lab is using
techniques they perfected
while working with

the pillar corals, to
house various other species
that are also threatened

by Stony Coral
Tissue Loss Disease.

The eventual goal is to restore
the species to the reef,

once the disease
outbreak has abated.

While experts are
actively working to treat
and rescue corals, one
big question remains.

What is causing this disease?

Everybody is concerned about
is why are the corals diseased
and what's causing it.

Is it a pathogen or is it
some environmental stressor?

Researchers at the Florida
Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission's Fish and Wildlife

Research Institute are
taking a microscopic look
at what may be occurring

in the coral tissue.

What we can do is look at how a
diseased tissue looks and then
compare that with what appears

to be a normal tissue.

The actual methods used
are pretty much the
same as if someone has
a biopsy where a small

piece of tissue is removed.

To analyze a tissue
sample, the hard coral
skeleton is dissolved
away, and the remaining

tissue and associated surface
organisms are preserved in a
gelatinous substance that holds

them in place.

There's just a lot of different
organisms that could be
there and we wouldn't really

necessarily know.

It's like looking at a zoo
of stuff and you just have no
idea what, if any, are actually

involved in the disease.

Next, the block of tissue is
finely sliced, and different
chemicals are used to stain

varying slices of the
sample - each chemical
highlighting different
features in the tissue,

such as the nucleus of the
cell, mucus, or bacteria.

We're looking possibly at
trying to find any pathogens
that we might be able
to see microscopically.

And also understanding how
the normal tissue has changed.

Where you see these like white
patchy areas, this is the
disease itself, the lesion.

And you can see where it's
really white space, it's
like the tissue is gone.

Scientists have found that the
disease appears to be occurring
in the deeper layer - what's

called the gastrodermis
- of several different
species affected by
Stony Coral Tissue Loss

Disease.

They're kind of structurally
different, but nonetheless,
the, the way the lesions look

internally is very similar.

And we've seen that in five
different species, so it
seems to be a commonality that

may help us understand how
the disease is manifesting.

We've seen what look like these
crystalline inclusion bodies
that are diamond shape or

rhomboid in the tissue,
sometimes near the lesion area.

And we have no sense
yet of what they are,

but they may be important
or they may not be.

So, we'll certainly be pursuing
looking at those to see if we
can find out what they are.

To help identify the microbes
found in the coral tissues, Jan
is collaborating with multiple

organizations, including Mote
Marine Laboratory's Coral
Health and Disease Program

led by Dr. Erinn Muller.

With the Stony Coral Tissue
Loss Disease, we still don't
know what the primary pathogen

is, but we do believe that it
is a microbe and a lot of the
evidence is suggesting that

it's a bacteria,
primarily because when
you apply antibiotics to
a diseased coral, that

progression seems to stop.

We want to understand how does
it transmit from a diseased
coral to a healthy coral.

And hopefully be able
to identify the pathogen
that could be responsible
for that transmission

that's occurring.

So, what we do is we go
collect diseased corals
from the reef and bring
them back to an isolated

lab.

We'll have a diseased coral
within a tank and then we'll
have different micro-fragments

touching the diseased coral
to see if over time, within a
few days usually, that disease

could transmit to
the micro-fragments.

If all the tissue just
kind of sloughs off of the
skeleton of the micro-fragment

it would suggest that the
disease had indeed transmitted.

If that coral stays beautifully
colored, appears to not have
suffered any tissue loss, then

it would suggest that
it was resistant to that
transmission of the disease.

So once a coral gets sick
from the disease transmission,
the progress continues until

the entire coral is dead.

There's been some evidence
in the field that the disease
may slow down at times.

But, for the majority, it
appears that once a coral gets
sick, the entire colony is going

to be lost.

Erinn takes samples of the
coral micro-fragments throughout
the transmission experiment to

figure out how their
microbes change through
time as the corals fight
the disease or become

sick.

To get the information from
the corals, we basically scrape
off some of the tissue and

put that tissue into a
preserving agent that
allows us to then extract
the DNA out of that

sample.

It contains DNA from everything
that was in your sample,
the coral, the bacteria, the

algae, the viruses, the fungi.

But, for our focus right
now we're really interested
in the bacterial community.

We're still trying to figure out
what's good bacteria for coral
and what's the bad bacteria

for coral.

And so, by us taking samples
and analyzing and characterizing
the bacterial community,

we can compare what's present
within diseased corals with
what's present within healthy

corals and hopefully
identify some of those
potential pathogenic
bacteria that are there

and maybe even causing
the tissue loss disease.

Our preliminary results
are really encouraging,
and we have definitely
seen a different signature

of bacteria within diseased
corals when we compare them
to healthy corals that are in

the same reef locations.

We have a couple different
bacteria species that seem to
definitely have a role within

this disease outbreak.
But whether or not
they're the pathogen, we
need to fulfill follow

up studies to really see if
it's a cause and effect, or an
association, or even potentially

just a secondary infection
that's not the primary
pathogen of the disease.

Erinn's transmission studies
are also helping to identify
genotypes of corals that appear

to be resistant to the disease.

This information is valuable
to Mote Marine Laboratory and
other organizations that are

restoring corals on the reef.

Now this is the perfect
chip right here.

One person involved
in restoration efforts
is Ken Nedimyer.

He began growing corals
in the wild in 2002 and
later founded the Coral
Restoration Foundation.

Years ago, I set out to show
people that we could grow and
raise corals offshore and regrow

them and plant them
on the coral reefs.

We went from one coral to
tens of thousands of corals.

Corals are unique in their
ability to reproduce sexually by
spawning and asexually through

fragmentation.

The Coral Restoration Foundation
uses the fragmentation
process by trimming a piece

of coral into smaller fragments.

We then glue that little piece
of coral onto a card that
we've previously printed that

had the genus and species,
and the particular genotype or
number that we'd assign to it.

Each card is placed on a Coral
Restoration Tree to grow in
their offshore nurseries.

Once they reach a certain size,
corals of identical genotypes
are outplanted in clusters

onto the reef, where they
will eventually fuse together
to create new colonies.

So, one single colony
that's you know the size
of half a basketball
could start to sexually

reproduce in two years.

That same colony would
take fifteen years
to grow from a baby.

We're trying to step
up the whole process.

You know, the goal is to get
these things breeding again.

The cornerstone of our
restoration program
is preserving, and
maintaining and outplanting

genetic diversity, with the
idea being that we want to
mimic as much natural diversity

that was on the
reef 40 years ago.

One genotype might be resistant
to coral bleaching, to high heat
temperatures, one genotype might

be more resistant to disease.

So, we want to make sure that
we're sort of trying to hit
every single possibility that

the climate could throw at
us, in hoping that once these
outplanting populations sexually

reproduce and spawn, that they
will form new genotypes and
those new genotypes will be

more resilient, more
resistant to future
changes in the climate.

As of early 2019, the Coral
Restoration Foundation's
offshore nursery contained
five species affected

by Stony Coral Tissue Loss
Disease, including 72 genotypes
of threatened boulder coral,

as well as a few genotypes
of threatened pillar coral.

Without our intervention,
without our active practice,

these corals won't
come back on their own.

So, our goal is to rebuild these
populations, start to put out
corals in the abundance and

diversity that they were
historically known to have.

And by doing that we
hope that we can start
to connect populations
that are too separate

right now, to spawn and
recruit on their own.

Over the years, I've
been fortunate to witness
the field of restoration
grow, there's more

practices emerging and this
community is really starting
to expand and come together.

This is part of a solution,
it's not the only part of a
solution, but we've been a part

of changing the way people
feel about coral reefs
and about the future.

We've given them hope.

This disease has
been devastating.

When you dive these reefs on
a week to week, month to month
basis, you have some favorite

corals.

It may sound silly, but we have
Archie and we have Big Daddy.

And I've got the Baby
Elephant which was a
beautiful, huge brain coral.

And when I see these things
now, I literally cry.

This is a hard issue
to raise awareness on.

There's so much going on in
the world and in people's lives
and this one is really hard

to see.

You not only have to be out
there diving or snorkeling,
but you also have to understand

what a coral is and what a dead
coral looks like and what the
implications of losing these

coral colonies are.

The Stony Coral Tissue Loss
Disease has had a devastating
impact on Florida's fragile

reef ecosystem.

But all hope is not lost.

Dedicated scientists are working
hard to find the cause of the
disease, treat the ill and

restore these cities of the
sea to their former glory.

I believe it's really important
that people understand that
it doesn't mean the end of

the Florida Keys reef system.

Corals are really, really
unique, resilient animals that
I believe can rebound and as

long as humans do a better
job of trying to take care of
our oceans, I think that can

really make a difference
in helping us address this
coral disease outbreak.

There's never been as
much effort put into
place to understand a
coral disease, to try

and stop a disease from
spreading, to try and save the
corals that are out there, and

hopefully put new ones back
out onto the reef environment.

The collaborative effort,
the amount of dedication
that scientists and the
community have really

put into trying to
understand what's going on
and trying to fight this
outbreak is unprecedented

and I'm glad that I'm a part of
it and hopefully we'll be making
a big difference that is going

to set a precedent for other
outbreaks related to coral
reefs around the world.

Major funding for this program
was provided by the Batchelor
Foundation, encouraging people

to preserve and protect
America's underwater resources.

And by The William J. &
Tina Rosenberg Foundation,

The Do Unto Others Trust,

and by the following.