The sponge may be Terpios hoshinota. Several papers on the effect of this cyanobacteriosponge on scleractinian corals will appear by searching RG, among them the following from Indonesia:

Article Persistent outbreaks of the “black disease” sponge Terpios h...

Article The coral-killing sponge Terpios hoshinota invades Indonesia

Article Abundance and genetic variation of the coral-killing cyanoba...

However, Terpios hoshinota is often described as being black, so sponge identification is necessary.

Thank you so much! I will definitely read the suggested articles.

Roxane,

Identification of coral diseases from pictures is very tricky and requires a lot of experience. My suggestion would be to contact Dr. Laurie Richardson directly to see if she can assist you in any way. This is her link on Researchgate:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Laurie_Richardson/contributions

I am attaching one of her review papers that you should find very interetsing.

NOAA has also came up with a good identification key for coral diseases that you should have a look at. This is the link:

https://cdhc.noaa.gov/diagnostics/identification_key.aspx

This paper should also be of interest:

https://www.coris.noaa.gov/activities/cdh_vision/pdfs/whitepapers_2.pdf

Lastly have a look at the Global Coral Disease Databse web site for additional information:

http://gcdd.tinypla.net/diseases

Hope this helps a bit.

Tomas

Hi Tomas,

Thank you for recommendations! We actually do use NOAA's CDHC, which has proved to be very helpful. However, there are still a few diseases/pigmentation variations/lesions that are hard to identify since they don't match any descriptions provided in the guide.

I will definitely contact Dr. Laurie Richardson - thank you for the sharing her contact details!

Also, I notice that you are based at UBC? I will be flying to Vancouver from Timor-Leste on July 23rd and staying a few days before heading to another expedition site in Belize. Any chance you would be around?

Once again, thank you so much!

-Roxane