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Climate change influences on marine infectious diseases: implications for management and society

Abstract: Infectious diseases are common in marine environments, but the effects of a changing climate on marine pathogens are not well understood. Here we review current knowledge about how the climate drives host-pathogen interactions and infectious disease outbreaks. Climate-related impacts on marine diseases are being documented in corals, shellfish, finfish, and humans; these impacts are less clearly linked for other organisms. Oceans and people are inextricably linked, and marine diseases can both directly and indirectly affect human health, livelihoods, and well-being. We recommend an adaptive management approach to better increase the resilience of ocean systems vulnerable to marine diseases in a changing climate. Land-based management methods of quarantining, culling, and vaccinating are not successful in the ocean; therefore, forecasting conditions that lead to outbreaks and designing tools/approaches to influence these conditions may be the best way to manage marine disease.

Authors: Colleen A. Burge C. Mark Eakin Carolyn S. Friedman Brett Froelich Paul K. Hershberger Eileen E. Hofmann Laura E. Petes Katherine C. Prager Ernesto Weil Bette L. Willis Susan E. Ford C. Drew Harvell

Resource URL: http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-marine-010213-135029