Are Diseases Increasing in the Ocean?

Many factors (climate warming, pollution, harvesting, introduced species) can contribute to disease outbreaks in marine life. Concomitant increases in each of these makes it difficult to attribute recent changes in disease occurrence or severity to any one factor. For example, the increase in disease of Caribbean coral is postulated to be a result of climate change and introduction of terrestrial pathogens. Indirect evidence exists that (a) warming increased disease in turtles; (b) protection, pollution, and terrestrial pathogens increased mammal disease; (c) aquaculture increased disease in mollusks; and (d) release from overfished predators increased sea urchin disease. In contrast, fishing and pollution may have reduced disease in fishes. In other taxa (e.g., sea grasses, crustaceans, sharks), there is little evidence that disease has changed over time. The diversity of patterns suggests there are many ways that environmental change can interact with disease in the ocean.