A bacterial probiotic helped slow the spread of a deadly disease on great star coral, one of the largest and most resistant corals still surviving in the Florida Reef Tract, a 560-kilometer (350-mile) barrier reef off the coast of Florida, U.S., a recent study found. The treatment involved sealing live great star coral (Montaststraea cavernosa) colonies inside large, weighted plastic bags filled with a probiotic seawater solution, creating a temporary aquarium. The corals treated in this way lost an average of 7% of their tissue, compared with 35% in untreated control corals. “It’s important to understand that this is the very beginning,” lead author Kelly Pitts, a researcher at the Smithsonian Marine Station, told Mongabay by phone. “This is definitely not a cure-all, but we’re definitely moving in the right direction.” Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) has caused extensive death for more than 30 species of reef-building corals in Florida’s coral reef and is now spreading to other reefs in the Caribbean Sea. Pillar coral (Dendrogyra cylindrus), a species known for its finger-like spires, is now considered functionally extinct in Florida due to SCTLD. Other species have lost up to 97% of their colonies. Researchers had tested two delivery methods to combat its spread with probiotics: a paste and the seawater solution. Both used a bacterial strain called McH1-7, which was isolated from a healthy coral and cultivated in a lab. The paste treatment, where divers applied the probiotic directly onto infected tissue and then spread it by hand…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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