http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44181933A strange new menace has joined the long list of threats to corals, the tiny reef-building animals that create important habitat in our oceans.
A bacterium that attacks humans is also killing off a species of coral in the Caribbean, elkhorn coral, according to researchers who proved the link by infecting fragments of the coral with bacteria from human sewage.
"This is quite an unusual discovery. It is the first time ever that a human disease has been shown to kill an invertebrate," said University of Georgia professor James Porter, one of the study researchers. "This is unusual because we humans usually get disease from wildlife, and this is the other way around."
Worldwide coral faces a litany of threats. Hurricanes, which are predicted to increase in severity and number as a result of climate change, break coral to bits; warming water temperatures cause it to eject its photosynthetic algae and to bleach; ocean acidification may be impairing the animals' ability to form their skeletons; and they are plagued by poor water quality and many diseases, most of them with unknown causes.
The coral cover in the Caribbean has declined 50 percent over the past 15 years, and elkhorn coral has declined by almost 90 percent during the same time period, according to Porter.
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