Evidence of Coral Diseases, Phase Shift, and Stressors in the Atolls of Lakshadweep Islands, Arabian Sea—With Geographical Notes on Their Occurrence within the Indian EEZ and Contiguous International Waters
Rocktim Ramen Das,
Chemmencheri Ramakrishnan Sreeraj,
Gopi Mohan,
Nina Tabitha Simon,
Purvaja Ramachandran,
Ramesh Ramachandran,
Pandian Krishnan,
Deepak Samuel Vijay Kumar
Affiliations
Rocktim Ramen Das
National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Chennai 600-025, India
Chemmencheri Ramakrishnan Sreeraj
National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Chennai 600-025, India
Gopi Mohan
National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Chennai 600-025, India
Nina Tabitha Simon
National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Chennai 600-025, India
Purvaja Ramachandran
National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Chennai 600-025, India
Ramesh Ramachandran
National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Chennai 600-025, India
Pandian Krishnan
National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Chennai 600-025, India
Deepak Samuel Vijay Kumar
National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Chennai 600-025, India
Photographic evidence of some important coral diseases (black band disease, black disease/Terpios hoshinota, white syndrome, pink line syndrome, pink spots, invertebrate galls, skeletal growth anomalies, tissue loss), coral competing sponges, and coral–algal phase shifts (competitive overgrowth of the seaweed Caulerpa spp. over corals and competitive scleractinian interactions such as with Halimeda spp.) have been collected during field observations in a few atolls within the Lakshadweep archipelago, Arabian Sea. Further, earlier reports of similar diseases and other stressors within the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and its contiguous international waters, including the reefs of the Maldives and Sri Lanka, are highlighted and their distributional ranges are shown.