Coral disease has emerged over recent decades as a significant threat to coral reef ecosystems, with declines in coral cover and diversity of Caribbean reefs providing an example of the potential impacts of disease at regional scales. If similar trends are to be mitigated or avoided on reefs worldwide, a deeper understanding of the factors underlying the origin and spread of coral diseases and ...

Determining the shape of coral structures is an essential step for coral biologists to classify and compare corals. Currently, coral biologists analyze shape by performing manual measurements on photographs of coral colonies. In this paper we describe an interactive visualization system for measuring coral shapes in a robust and quantitative way. The input of the system is a CT scan of the cora...

Optical modeling was applied for obtaining absorbance spectra and band gap values for different morphology of ZnO semiconductor. In optical modeling, the relative permittivity scalars of zinc oxide coral like nanorods were calculated using the Bruggeman homogenization formalism. ZnO nano rods (ZONRs) as a nucleus layer were fabricated on the Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) by chronoamperometry (CA) in a...

Replacement dolomite in the Latemar carbonate buildup, northern Italy, formed when limestone was infiltrated by and reacted with Mg-rich fluid. It occurs in discrete bodies in sharp contact with unreacted limestone. The dolomite developed in a nearly orthogonal lattice of vertical columns (replacement of limestone breccia pipes) and sheets (replacement along fractures and limestone-dike contact...

Pseudonannolene ambuatinga n. sp. and Pseudonannolene saguassu n. sp. are described from individuals collected in limestone caves in the municipality of Pains, Minas Gerais, Brazil, which comprises a scenario of great conflict between speleological preservation and limestone extraction. The two species differ in their gonopod morphology and in size and color. Pseudonannolene ambuatinga n. sp. i...

By cultivating turf algae and aggressively defending their territories, territorial damselfishes in the genus Stegastes play a major role in shaping coral-algal dynamics on coral reefs. The epilithic algal matrix (EAM) inside Stegastes' territories is known to harbor high abundances of potential coral disease pathogens. To determine the impact of territorial grazers on coral microbial assemblag...

Coral reefs are one of the world's most threatened ecosystems, with global and local stressors contributing to their decline. Excessive sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) can cause coral bleaching, resulting in coral death and decreases in coral cover. A SST threshold of 1 °C over the climatological maximum is widely used to predict coral bleaching. In this study, we refined thermal indices predic...

The complex symbiotic relationship between corals and their dinoflagellate partner Symbiodinium is believed to be sustained through close associations with mutualistic bacterial communities, though little is known about coral associations with bacterial groups able to fix nitrogen (diazotrophs). In this study, we investigated the diversity of diazotrophic bacterial communities associated with t...