Scraping and extirpating: two strategies to induce recovery of diseased Gorgonia ventalina sea fans

Published source details Ruiz-Diaz C.P., Toledo-Hernández C., Mercado-Molina A.E. & Sabat A.M. (2016) Scraping and extirpating: two strategies to induce recovery of diseased Gorgonia ventalina sea fans. Marine Ecology, 37, 336-343.
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This study is summarised as evidence for the following.

	Action	Category
	Control spread of disease using biological, chemical and/or mechanical methods Action Link

Control spread of disease using biological, chemical and/or mechanical methods

A replicated, before-and-after study in 2011–2013 at two nature reserves in Puerto Rico (Ruiz-Diaz et al. 2016), found that scraping or chopping lesions off diseased sea fan Gorgonia ventalina colonies led to most colonies regrowing live tissue or growing new branches, but recovery depended on the amount of initial lesion coverage. After 16 months, 50% of coral colonies with lesions scraped off had regrown between 80-100% of the lost live tissue but 7-10% of colonies had further tissue loss. After chopping off lesions, there was no difference in regrowth of live tissue between diseased (11%; 0.09 mm/day) and healthy coral (19%, 0.14 mm/day). Seventy-five percent of colonies fully recovered when the area of the colony initially covered by lesions was low (<5%), compared to 42% of colonies with a high proportion of initial lesion coverage (≥ 10%). In July 2011, a total of 60 diseased sea fan colonies (with lesions or purpling tissue), and 29 healthy colonies were identified in two Natural Reserves and diseased tissue photographed. All lesions and surrounding purpling tissue on diseased colonies and ~10% of the surface area from the healthy colonies were scraped using metal-bristle brushes. A further 27 colonies (17 diseased, 10 healthy) were identified in one of the reserves and branches with lesions were cut from the diseased colonies and ~10% of surface area cut from healthy colonies. Recovery was monitored monthly using photographs for 16 months (scraped) and 12 months (chopped) colonies.

(Summarised by: Ann Thornton)