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10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.35.021103.105704

Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 2004. 35:31–54
doi: 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.35.021103.105704
First published online as a Review in Advance on June 2, 2004

ARE DISEASES INCREASING IN THE OCEAN?

∗

Kevin D. Lafferty,1 James W. Porter,2 and Susan E.Ford3
Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 2004.35:31-54. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org
by TUFTS UNIVERSITY on 11/04/05. For personal use only.

1

U.S. Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, c/o Marine Science
Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106;
email: Lafferty@lifesci.ucsb.edu
2
Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens,Georgia 30602;
email: jporter@uga.edu
3
Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory, Rutgers University, Port Norris,
New Jersey 08349; email: susan@hsrl.rutgers.edu

Key Words mass mortality, bleaching, global warming, disease, marine
■ Abstract Many factors (climate warming, pollution, harvesting, introduced
species) can contribute to disease outbreaks in marine life. Concomitant increases
ineach of these makes it difficult to attribute recent changes in disease occurrence
or severity to any one factor. For example, the increase in disease of Caribbean
coral is postulated to be a result of climate change and introduction of terrestrial
pathogens. Indirect evidence exists that (a) warming increased disease in turtles;
(b) protection, pollution, and terrestrial pathogens increasedmammal disease; (c)
aquaculture increased disease in mollusks; and (d) release from overfished predators increased sea urchin disease. In contrast, fishing and pollution may have reduced disease in fishes. In other taxa (e.g., sea grasses, crustaceans, sharks), there
is little evidence that disease has changed over time. The diversity of patterns suggests there are many ways that environmental changecan interact with disease in the
ocean.

INTRODUCTION
The perception of an ecological crisis in the oceans has led to research on signs of
deterioration in ocean health. Recent mass mortalities in marine systems, including
Caribbean sea urchins (Lessios 1988), phocine distemper virus (Heide-Jorgensen
et al. 1992), pilchard mortalities (Jones et al. 1997), and especially coral bleaching(Hoegh-Guldberg 1999), have consequently received the attention and concern
of marine ecologists (e.g., Goreau et al. 1998, Greenstein et al. 1998, Hayes &
Goreau 1998, Hoegh-Guldberg 1999, Porter et al. 2001, Wilkinson 2002). The scale
of these events and their impact on populations and associated communities have
∗
The U.S. Government has the right to retain a nonexclusive, royalty-freelicense in and to
any copyright covering this paper.

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been dramatic in some cases. Some species, such asblack abalone in California
(Lafferty & Kuris 1993), sun stars in the Sea of Cortez (Dungan et al. 1982),
staghorn coral (Diaz-Soltero 1999), and long-spined sea urchin in the Caribbean
(Lessios 1988), were reduced to such low population densities by infectious disease
that recovery is in question. That these events seem unprecedented has led to the
hypothesis that disease outbreaks in marineorganisms have increased in recent
years (Epstein 1996, Harvell et al. 1999, Hayes et al. 2001, Williams & BunkleyWilliams 1990). Here, we review the little systematic evidence available on changes
in marine disease and outline factors that can increase (or decrease) disease in the
ocean.
Coral diseases have received increasing attention as an explanation for the recent decline in coral reefs...