Data_Sheet_2_Diversity and Disease: The Effects of Coral Diversity on Prevalence and Impacts of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.pdf

Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) was first observed in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) in January 2019. This disease affects at least 20 scleractinian coral species; however, it is not well understood how reef diversity affects its spread or its impacts on reef ecosystems. With a large number of susceptible species, SCTLD may not follow the diversity-disease hypothesis, which proposes that high species diversity is negatively correlated with disease prevalence. Instead, SCTLD may have a higher prevalence and a greater impact on reefs with higher coral diversity. To test this, in 2020 we resampled 54 sites around St. Thomas previously surveyed in 2017 or 2019 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Coral Reef Monitoring Program. These sites represented a variety of species diversity values [categorized into poor (

石珊瑚组织损失病（SCTLD）首次于2019年1月在美属维尔京群岛的圣托马斯岛被发现。该疾病至少影响了20种石珊瑚纲物种；然而，关于珊瑚礁多样性对其传播或对珊瑚礁生态系统影响的研究尚不充分。考虑到存在大量易感物种，SCTLD可能并不遵循多样性-疾病假说，该假说提出高物种多样性与疾病流行率呈负相关。相反，SCTLD可能在珊瑚多样性较高的珊瑚礁中具有更高的流行率和更大的影响。为此，2020年，我们重新采样了54个站点，这些站点曾于2017年或2019年由美国国家海洋和大气管理局国家珊瑚礁监测计划进行过调查，位于圣托马斯岛周围。这些站点代表了多种物种多样性水平[分为劣质（