Dataset: Coral disease data at 4 locations in the Caribbean in 2012: Mahahual, Mexico; Tuxpan, Mexico; Bocas del Toro, Panama; St. John, United States Virgin Islands

We studied four locations: (1) Mahahual, Mexico (latitude  18"42’N, longitude  87"42’W) and (2) Tuxpan, Mexico (latitude  21"01’N, longitude  97"11’W), (3) Bocas del Toro, Panama (latitude  9"12’N, longitude  82"09’W) and (4) St. John, United States Virgin Islands (USVI) (latitude  18"18’N, longitude  64"45’W). Each site is identified geographically with latitude and longitude in the original Excel Spreadsheet.

Each coral colony with a disease sign was identified in situ and the species and disease signs were recorded. Four disease signs were identified: (1) white sign was defined as a bright, white band or patch of recent mortality adjacent to healthy-appearing tissue (i.e., the tissue bordered a well-defined edge of exposed skeleton not yet colonized by algae or other biofouling organisms), (2) dark spot was defined as tissue with purple, brown or black lesions, forming spots of irregular shapes, (3) black band was defined as a black band over the coral tissue exposing white skeleton with different stages of biofouling, and (4) yellow sign was defined as a yellow discoloration of tissue forming a band or blotches. White signs and black bands were associated with recent tissue loss; yellow signs and dark spots were usually, but not always, associated with recent tissue loss. Notably, very few yellow bands were observed that followed the classical description. Instead, most coral colonies presented a patchy, non-uniform yellowing of the tissue; therefore the condition was termed ‘yellow sign.’ Additionally, any area of recently exposed white skeleton, which was not clearly caused by predation or a competitive interaction, was recorded as a white sign, including white plagues, white bands and white pox. The white-sign diseases were not differentiated because of similar- or identical-appearing signs, unknown etiologies for several diseases, and the possibility that the diseases were caused by the same pathogens. Coral colonies were occasionally recorded with two or more signs of disease, when those signs appeared to be spatially independent.

The data will be freely accessible, but are restrictting all access until our final manuscript has been through the peer review process and has been published. Therefore, we are restricting access until 1st June 2017, one year after the final dataset will be submitted (May 30, 2016). Currently, only the site locations and positions are available in the dataset.

References:

Randall, C.J., A. Jordan-Garza, E. Muller, R. van Woesik (2014) Relationships between the history of thermal stress and the relative risk of Caribbean coral diseases. Ecology 95(7): 1981-1994