Description

Corals create the backbone for fantastic tropical reefs, but they’re getting sick, and we don’t know why. I’m working to find out what causes coral diseases, what they do to corals, why they’re becoming more common, and what we can do to stop them. To do that, I look to coral cells.

These are photographs of healthy and diseased corals from Moorea, French Polynesia. I collected these samples last November, dissolved their skeletons, stained their tissues, and photographed them under a microscope. By looking at them closely, I can see how diseases affect corals and begin to understand what might be making corals sick. The four photos on the left are from healthy coral colonies, with vibrant gonads and robust populations of the symbiotic algae that corals need to survive. The four photos on the right are from diseased coral colonies. Invading organisms burst through tissues as corals try to fight them off, providing a snapshot of a small-scale battle in a much wider war.