The stony-coral-tissue-loss disease has recently caused widespread loss of coral along the Florida reef tract. Yet little is known about where, when, and why this coral disease outbreak occurred. In the absence of a definitive pathogen, it is essential to characterize the ecology of the disease and document the spatio-temporal dynamics of the outbreak. Here, we investigate the epizootiology of the stony-coral-tissue-loss disease at multiple spatial and temporal scales along the Florida reef tract from May 2014 to December 2017. We used spatial interpolation to characterize the disease hotspots, Ripley’s K analysis to examine contagion, a spatio-temporal model to assess rates of spread, and a Bayesian model to examine ecological and environmental covariates that may have influenced the occurrence and severity of the outbreak. Our results show that the disease affected reefs at the scale of hundreds of kilometers, with significant clusters of up to 140 km. The epizootic clearly followed a contagion model, suggesting that the disease was highly contagious. The rate of spread of the epizootic was linear and moved slightly faster to the north (~ 100 m d-1) than to the south (~ 92 m d-1). The difference in rate of spread between the north and south direction may indicate currents facilitated transmission. The analyzed dataset showed that the epizootic affected at least 19 coral species and that deep and diverse sites were at greater risk of the disease than shallow and low diversity sites.
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机译：石珊瑚 - 组织损失疾病最近沿着佛罗里达礁道引起了珊瑚的广泛丧失。然而，关于在哪里，何时，以及为什么这种珊瑚疾病爆发发生的情况毫无少。在没有明确的病原体的情况下，必须表征疾病的生态并记录爆发的时空动态。在这里，我们从2014年5月到2017年5月，沿着佛罗里达礁石的多个空间和时间鳞片损失疾病的热学引发学。我们使用空间插值来表征疾病热点，Ripley的K分析检查传染病，一种评估扩散率的时空模型，以及贝叶斯模型，以检查可能影响爆发的生态和环境协变者的生态和环境协变量。我们的研究结果表明，该疾病影响了数百公里的珊瑚礁，具有高达140公里的显着簇。外膜引脚显然遵循了传染性模型，表明这种疾病具有高度传染性。外膜引脚的扩散速率是线性的，比向南部（〜92 m D-1）稍微移动到北部（〜100米D-1）。北方和南方方向之间的差距差异可能表示电流便利传输。分析的DataSet显示，脱臭毒性影响至少有19个珊瑚物种，并且深层和多样化的部位比浅层和低多样性位点更大的疾病风险。
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