Status of coral reef health in the northern Red Sea, Egypt
Coral reefs are among the most heavily degraded marine ecosystems. Over the last two decades, coral
reef communities have experienced increasingly stressful conditions due to a combination of natural and anthropogenic factors (Wilkinson 2004). Coral disease potentially acts as a bioindicator of reef health (Green and Bruckner 2000) and recent increases in coral disease events have been linked to
environmental stress and climate change (Lesser et al. 2007). Coral disease diagnosis is primarily macroscopic, taking into account characteristics such as the extent of tissue loss, tissue color and exposure of coral skeleton (Ainsworth et al. 2007). Red Sea reefs are cited among the most diverse in
the world in terms of overall species diversity (Loya 1972), yet the corals in this region are not well studied (Rinkevich 2005). In the Red Sea, coral reef degradation has increased dramatically during the last three decades, particularly along the Egyptian Red Sea coast due to enhanced anthropogenic disturbances and their interaction with natural stressors (Ali et al. 2011). These stressors are thought to cause coral diseases and bleaching leading to a loss of coral cover. Unfortunately, very little is currently known about the prevalence, distribution and pathology of coral disease in the Red Sea (Antonius and Riegl 1997; Al- Moghrabi 2001). The aims of this study were to provide baseline knowledge of coral health and disease prevalence in the northern Egyptian Red Sea, and to identify coral species that were the most susceptible to each specific disease.
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