Intra-colony disease progression induces fragmentation of coral fluorescent pigments

As disease spreads through living coral, it can induce changes in the distribution of coral’s naturally fluorescent pigments, making fluorescence a potentially powerful non-invasive intrinsic marker of coral disease. Here, we show the usefulness of live-imaging laser scanning confocal microscopy to investigate coral health state. We demonstrate that the Hawaiian coral Montipora capitata consistently emits cyan and red fluorescence across a depth gradient in reef habitats, but the micro-scale spatial distribution of those pigments differ between healthy coral and coral affected by a tissue loss disease. Naturally diseased and laboratory infected coral systematically exhibited fragmented fluorescent pigments adjacent to the disease front as indicated by several measures of landscape structure (e.g., number of patches) relative to healthy coral. Histology results supported these findings. Pigment fragmentation indicates a disruption in coral tissue that likely impedes translocation of energy within a colony. The area of fragmented fluorescent pigments in diseased coral extended 3.03 mm ± 1.80 mm adjacent to the disease front, indicating pathogenesis was highly localized rather than systemic. Our study demonstrates that coral fluorescence can be used as a proxy for coral health state, and, such patterns may help refine hypotheses about modes of pathogenesis.