Dataset: Ecological results of SCTLD multi-species transmission experiment at the University of the Virgin Islands Center for Marine and Environmental Studies

In summary, eight colonies each of healthy Colophyllia natans, Montastraea cavernosa, Orbicella annularis, Porites astreoides, Pseudodiploria strigosa, and Siderastrea siderea were collected from the field where no disease was reported and brought to the University of the Virgin Islands marine laboratory and kept in running seawater tables. Colonies were split into two and allowed to acclimate to seawater table conditions. One day prior to the experiment commencing, eight healthy colonies of Diploria labyrinthiformis were collected from the same site. Separately, an additional 8 colonies of D. labyrinthiformis exhibiting signs consistent with stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) were collected from a known diseased location and kept separate from healthy colonies. On the day the experiment commenced, fragments of the six coral species were arranged at equal distances around a healthy D. labyrinthiformis. For the disease treatment, corresponding fragments of each genet of the six species were arranged around a SCTLD-affected D. labyrinthiformis. Water changes were performed each day and all corals were checked twice daily for the appearance of lesions. When lesions appeared on a colony it was monitored more frequently and if lesions were determined to be consistent with SCTLD and expanding over a 12-hour period, the fragment was photographed, removed from the experimental container, and processed.

Methods and data analysis are published in Meiling et al. 2021 (doi: 10.3389/fmars.2021.670829).