Great star corals in the grip of disease have been saved with probiotics — beneficial bacteria that attack or displace invading pathogens or possibly trigger immune responses to them.
What’s causing this deadly disease remains unidentified. But researchers at the Smithsonian Marine Station in Fort Pierce, Fla., were able to successfully halt progression of the disease’s symptoms, the team reports June 5 in Frontiers in Marine Science.
The condition is called stony coral tissue loss disease and is characterized by white lesions that lead to the loss of polyps — tiny soft-bodied organisms similar to sea anemones — blanketing coral. Eventually, nothing but the white coral skeleton is left