Human Feces Bacteria Could be the Cause of Death in Caribbean Elkhorn Corals

A mysterious disease that ravaged coral populations in the Caribbean and Florida Keys for more than a decade came from microbes living in human feces, a new study reveals. Elkhorn coral was once the most common coral in the Caribbean Sea, but now its populations have been reduced by nearly 90 percent over the past 15 years and it now faces great risk of extinction in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).