Mass Mortality of Porites Corals on Northern Persian Gulf Reefs due to Sediment-Microbial Interactions

Little information is available on coral diseases in the Persian Gulf; however, in the recent years, reports of coral diseases increased in particular from Iranian side of the Persian Gulf. In this paper we report a White Mat Disease resulting in mass mortality of Porites colonies at Hormuz Island. This outbreak infected 96% of all Porites colonies and killed 58±30% (mean ± SD) of all Porites tissues.