Florida Keys Coral Disease Strike Team: FY 2020/2021 Final Report

A response priority has been active treatments of treat diseased corals to allow for the survival of priority sites and colonies. As such, a coral disease response strike team was established by Nova Southeastern University to treat and monitor diseased corals in the Florida Keys. Additional duties of this team included training other regional strike teams, conducting coral spawning activities (with summary and results of work available in Neely (2020a)), and providing additional field support. The strike team was contracted for 100 days of in-water work, with an additional nine days added in May 2020 as work was completed early. This report outlines the activities undertaken and results of work conducted July 2020 to June 2021.

Work conducted under this project from July 1, 2020 to June 14, 2021 included 110 in-water days of two to four divers each. The strike team conducted 876 dives, totaling 1073.5 in-water hours. Of the 110 days, 2 were dedicated to coral spawning (Neely 2020a), 4 to disease scouting, 2 to coral collections for Smithsonian experiments and coral collections, 2 to probiotics trials, and 100 to disease treatment and monitoring.