Table 1.

Mean lesion progression rate (cm d⁻¹) of white band diseased coral nubbins during the antibiotic experiment. (Time 0 represents lesion progression rate in the 12 h prior to the start of the experiment confirming that all lesions were advancing prior to treatment. ND, non-diseased corals kept under experimental conditions as controls. No disease lesions developed in these controls. WBD, white band diseased corals untreated with antibiotic. These lesions continued to progress throughout the experiment and samples were collected before the whole coral nubbin had died (see + for collection points). Amp, ampicillin-treated white band diseased corals. Lesion progression was immediately halted under this treatment. Gent, gentamicin-treated white band diseased corals. Lesions in this treatment continued to progress throughout the experiment, but all nubbins survived to the end of the experiment and were sampled at 144 h. Met, metronidazole-treated white band diseased corals. Lesions in this treatment continued to progress throughout the experiment, and samples were collected before the nubbins were completely killed (see + for collection points). Para, paromomycin-treated white band diseased corals. Lesion progression halted after 24 h in this treatment. Plus symbols show time points when an individual nubbin was sampled, either when <1 cm of tissue was left on the coral nubbin or at the end of the experiment. Data are means ± s.e. (n = 6 initially).)

time (h)	ND	WBD	amp	gent	met	para
0	0	0.9 ± 0.10	0.9 ± 0.10	0.8 ± 0.23	0.9 ± 0.20	0.9 ± 0.2
24	0	0.9 ± 0.07	0	0.6 ± 0.19	0.6 ± 0.19	0.7 ± 0.45
48	0	1.2 ± 0.08	0	0.8 ± 0.28	1.4 ± 0.3	0
72	0	1.5 ± 0.20	0	1.4 ± 0.53	1.8 ± 0.55 ++	0
96	0	3.4 ± 0.40 ++++	0	1.7 ± 0.7	2.3 ± 0.7	0
120	0	++	0	1.9 ± 0.8	1.9 ± 0.1 +++	0
144	0		0	1 ± 0.4	++	0
	++++++		++++++	++++++		++++++