Coral reefs in Thailand are threatened by climate change and eutrophication. Now they have also suffered from an incurable disease. It is spreading over ever larger areas and scientists don’t know how to stop it.
It looks like yellow spots, or yellow bands. The disease that is now threatening the coral reefs is called yellow band diesese and it is a bacterium that is behind it.
Corals are animals that live in large colonies. They are already stressed by increasingly warmer water and pollution from emissions. This means that their immune system is weak, and the bacteria can easily infect. The disease has already killed corals on an area equivalent to over 340 football pitches and the infected area is only growing.
For many years now, the disease has also taken hold in the Caribbean, where it kills more and more corals. Something that causes the fish that live in the coral forests to lose their food or hiding places. So also now in Thailand where the local fishing is being destroyed.
In the player above: This is what the disease looks like