Figure 4. Photographs of the eight most affected corals to the recent white-plague epizootic off Miami-Dade County, FL, showing active disease on each species.

Disease prevalence recorded is calculated from time-swim survey data (Fig. 1) and graphically represented as proportions, where red represents disease prevalence, and blue represents the proportion of colonies with no signs of disease. Disease prevalence includes colonies with both active signs of white-plague disease and those that were identified as recently killed as a direct result of the disease. The strong coupling between disease prevalence and total coral mortality suggests that disease prevalence was a useful proxy of mortality. Sample size (n=) is the total number of colonies observed at the ten (10) timed-swim survey sites. The combined coral disease prevalence for these eight species is 90%. Coral species abbreviations are as follows: Eusmilia fastigiata (EFAS), Meandrina meandrites (MMEA), Dichocoenia stokesi (DSTO), Colpophyllia natans (CNAT), Pseudodiploria strigosa (PSTR), Diploria labyrinthiformis (DLAB), Orbicella annularis (OANN), and Solenastrea bournoni (SBOU). Photographs taken by WFP.