Karen Neely

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Nova Southeastern University

The unprecedented mortality of stony corals on Florida’s Coral Reef from stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) was mitigated on some priority sites and corals through the use of a topical amoxicillin paste to halt disease lesion progression. One management concern about the use of antibiotics on these corals was the impact it may have on gametoge...

The summer 2023 marine heatwave was the most severe on record for Florida’s Coral Reef, with unprecedented water temperatures and cumulative heat stress leading to 100% coral bleaching. An existing fate-tracking program of over 4200 brain and boulder coral colonies across five offshore and four inshore reefs allowed for analyses of bleaching-relate...

Metrics of coral physiology can be used to identify changes in coral health due to environmental stressors or management actions. One of the most unprecedented stressors to Caribbean corals is the spread of stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), which also resulted in the novel management action of in-water amoxicillin treatments on active diseas...

The decimation of reefs caused by stony coral tissue loss disease prompted the use of a topical amoxicillin treatment to prevent coral mortality. Application of this treatment led to concerns about unintentional impacts such as potential alteration of the coral microbiome and possible spread of antibiotic resistance. We used two different methodolo...

The marine heatwave in the summer of 2023 was the most severe on record for Florida's Coral Reef, with unprecedented water temperatures and cumulative thermal stress precipitating near 100% coral bleaching levels. An existing SCTLD coral fate-tracking program assessed over 4200 coral colonies across five offshore and four inshore reef sites approxi...

The presence of stressors, particularly disease, on corals necessitates assessments of their severity in order to compare threat levels and to plan for impacts. Diseases in particular are often measured via the rate at which a lesion moves across a coral (lesion progression rate) to determine the impact of those lesions and also to compare virulenc...

Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) has spread throughout the entirety of Florida’s Coral Reef (FCR) and across the Caribbean, impacting at least 30 coral species. The threatened hermatypic coral, Orbicella faveolata, demonstrates intraspecific variation in SCTLD affectedness with some colonies experiencing chronic disease lesions, while other...

The presence and abundance of reef-building corals are crucial to the long-term existence of Caribbean coral reef ecosystems, providing both direct and indirect, local and global, ecological, economic, and social benefits. In 2014, stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) was first identified in southeast Florida and remains endemic to the region, w...

The decline of elkhorn coral, Acropora palmata, has been ongoing for decades, but the causes of decline and the resulting population status continue to be topics of study. Past efforts to categorize stressors have ranged from spatially and/or temporally focused efforts that detect local stressors but may miss broader patterns to meta-analyses that...

Government and private organizations in many regions invest heavily in artificial reefs as a method of enhancing fish populations for recreational fishermen. Though these reefs are known to aggregate fish in the short-term, the long-term maintenance of elevated fish abundance may be impaired as a result of succession to an unpalatable benthic commu...

Since 2014, stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) has led to large-scale mortality of over 20 coral species throughout the Florida Reef Tract. In 2019, in-water disease intervention strategies were implemented to treat affected corals. Two treatment strategies were employed: (1) topical application of an amoxicillin paste directly to disease marg...

As stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) swept through the Florida Reef Tract, one of the most severely impacted species was the iconic pillar coral, Dendrogyra cylindrus. As the species’ population experienced a precipitous decline, a collaborative rescue project collected colony fragments for safekeeping at onshore and offshore nursery faciliti...

Coral reefs worldwide are in a state of decline, but the population status and impacts of stressors for rare species are generally not well documented using broad-scale monitoring protocols. We fate-tracked all known colonies of the pillar coral, Dendrogyra cylindrus, on the Florida Reef Tract (FRT) from 2013 to 2020 to assess population condition...

Temporal patterns in giant barrel sponge (Xestospongia muta) spawning were compiled from 32 observations spanning 17 years and three Caribbean locations (Florida, Belize, and Haiti). The records were analyzed for patterns in seasonality, lunar periodicity, and diel rhythm to develop a predictive spawning window. Results indicate that spawning is co...

Contrasts in spawning time between in situ and ex situ colonies of the pillar coral Dendrogyra cylindrus were assessed by comparing 8 years of in situ spawning observations with 3 years of observations on ex situ corals held in outdoor flow-through tanks. In situ colonies exhibited a 3-day spawning window, with peak spawning occurring three nights...

Since 2014, Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) has led to mass mortality of the majority of hard coral species on the Florida Reef Tract. Following the successful treatment of SCTLD lesions on laboratory corals using water dosed with antibiotics, two topical pastes were developed as vehicles to directly apply antibiotic treatments to wild cora...

A devastating novel coral disease outbreak, referred to as Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD), was first described in 2014. It is thought to have originated offshore of Miami-Dade County, FL, but has persisted and spread, affecting new reefs along the Florida Reef Tract and reefs of at least 8 other Caribbean jurisdictions. We investigated the...

Coral reefs worldwide are in a state of decline, but the status of populations and stressors for rare species are generally not well documented using broad-scale monitoring protocol. We fate-tracked all known colonies of the pillar coral Dendrogyra cylindrus on the Florida Reef Tract from 2013-2020 to assess the population and document the impacts...

Since 2014, Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) has led to mass mortality of the majority of hard coral species on the Florida Reef Tract. Following the successful treatment of SCTLD lesions on corals in closed aquaria using water dosed with antibiotics, two pastes were developed as vehicles for direct antibiotic treatments on wild corals. Thes...

With ongoing changes in climate, rare and ecologically specialized species are at increased risk of extinction. In sessile foundation fauna that reproduce asexually via fragmentation of existing colonies, the number of colonies does not reflect the number of genets and thus can obscure genotypic diversity. Colonies that are the product of fragmenta...

Most scleractinian corals form obligate symbioses with photosynthetic dinoflagellates (family Symbiodiniaceae), which provide differential tolerances to their host. Previously, research has focused on the influence of symbiont composition and the dynamic processes of symbiont repopulation during single episodes of hyperthermal events, followed by y...

Scleractinian corals typically reproduce sexually as either gonochoric (separate male and female) or hermaphroditic (producing both eggs and sperm) colonies. The Caribbean pillar coral Dendrogyra cylindrus has been classified as gonochoric, but multi-year spawning observations at a Florida Keys site revealed incidences of hermaphroditism. Separate...

Rare and ecologically specialized species are at greater risk of extinction. Rarity in terms of low genotypic diversity may be obscured in sessile foundation species that can reproduce asexually. Asexual propagules are often only distinguishable from sexual recruits through molecular tools. Thus, molecular markers are necessary to assess genotypic...

Black band disease (BBD) affects many coral species worldwide and is considered a major contributor to the decline of reef-building coral. On the Florida Reef Tract BBD is most prevalent during summer and early fall when water temperatures exceed 29 °C. BBD is rarely reported in pillar coral (Dendrogyra cylindrus) throughout the Caribbean, and here...

Based on five years of demographic monitoring of wild Acropora palmata along the Florida Reef Tract, the strongest predictors of monthly colony survival were factors related to season, year, region, and initial skeletal area. While colony survival was generally lowest in Biscayne National Park and the Lower Florida Keys, colonies throughout the Flo...

Sponge samples were taken by scuba diving from six sites around Sea Lion Island (Sea Lion, Sea Lion Easterly and Brandy Islands), three sites south-east of East Falkland (Motley Island, Green Island and Triste Island) and six sites around Beauchêne Island. Nine new species are described: Iophon roseum sp. nov., Clathria (Microciona) tenebrosa sp. n...

A mesopelagic scaled squid, Pholidoteuthis massyae, was found for the first time in the south-west Atlantic, and an epi-mesobathyal octopus, Muusoctopus eureka, was found in shallow waters of the Falkland Islands almost a century after its last record there. These new records are tentatively attributed to recent climatic changes in oceanic waters o...

Sponge samples were taken by SCUBA diving from four sites around Stanley and nine sites at the Jason Islands in the Falkland Islands. Twelve new species are described: Iophon pictoni sp. nov., Lissodendoryx (Ectyodoryx) jasonensis sp. nov., Phorbas ferrugineus sp. nov., Phorbas shackletoni sp. nov., Myxilla (Styloptilon) acanthotornota sp. nov., Am...

Dissertation Coral reef fish coexist in a state of high diversity that has not been successfully explained by niche diversification, larval supply, differential mortality, or a suite of other proposed factors. These processes are all occurring on a diverse substrate that would be expected to affect the abundance and distribution of fish by directi...