ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on several recent disease problems in these five phyla that warrant attention of multidisciplinary teams to examine relationships among environmental conditions, pathogens, and their hosts. The first indication that sponges could become diseased were observations from the late 1800’s of the destruction of sponges in the Indian Ocean and eastern Gulf of Mexico, possibly by a fungus. Extensive mortalities occurred in species of commercial sponges beginning in late 1938 in the Bahamas. The disease affected Spongia officinalis and Hippospongia communis off Tunisia, Cyprus, and Turkey, severely curtailing the sponge industry in countries that were suffering from overexploitation of the sponge beds. The cnidarians also constitute a large and very diverse group of marine and estuarine organisms that inhabit both the benthos and water column and are further distinguished by variations in life history phases.
