Human sewage to blame for killing imperiled coral

Coral - Human sewage is to blame for a disease that is killing elkhorn coral, listed as endangered several years ago because of a massive die-off, US researchers said on Wednesday.



The coral lives in waters off south Florida and the Bahamas and was once the most prevalent in the Caribbean but has been vanishing due to white pox disease, caused by the bacterium Serratia marcescens that is found in human and animal waste.





Researchers analyzed the bacteria from a wastewater treatment facility in Key West, Florida and compared to feces samples from local animals and birds. The type afflicting coral was found to match the kind found in human sewage.



In the study published in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, researchers described their finding as 'the first time a human disease has been shown to cause population declines of a marine invertebrate.' 'These bacteria do not come from the ocean, they come from us,' said co-author James Porter of the University of Georgia.



[via - Straitstimes]