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About the Authors:
Greta S. Aeby
Contributed equally to this work with: Greta S. Aeby, Gareth J. Williams
* E-mail: [email protected] (GSA); [email protected] (GJW)
Affiliation: Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, Kaneohe, Hawaii, United States of America
Gareth J. Williams
Contributed equally to this work with: Greta S. Aeby, Gareth J. Williams
* E-mail: [email protected] (GSA); [email protected] (GJW)
Affiliations School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand, Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California, United States of America
Erik C. Franklin
Affiliation: Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, Kaneohe, Hawaii, United States of America
Jessica Haapkyla
Affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, and School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
C. Drew Harvell
Affiliations Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States of America, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
Stephen Neale
Affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, and School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
Cathie A. Page
Affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, and School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
Laurie Raymundo
Affiliation: University of Guam Marine Lab, University of Guam (UOG) Station, Mangilao, Guam
Bernardo Vargas-Ángel
Affiliation: University of Hawaii, Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States of America
Bette L. Willis
Affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, and School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
Thierry M. Work
Affiliation: U. S. Geological Survey, National Wildlife Health Center, Honolulu Field Station, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States of America
Simon K. Davy
Affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
Introduction
Coral reefs represent some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet, but these important habitats are declining worldwide due to human overexploitation, land-based pollution, global climate change, and disease outbreaks [1]–[6]. While the situation is most severe in the Caribbean, coral reefs are also in decline across the Indo-Pacific, where an annual loss in coral cover of approximately 1% has occurred over the last 20 years, increasing to 2% between 1997 and 2003 [7]. Coral diseases...