A particularly aggressive form of white plague known as WPL III has so far been documented attacking only very large colonies of C. natans and Montastraea annularis.
It is prone to bleaching, when a coral expels its zooxanthellae under stressful conditions, to black band disease, and to white plague.
This is because recruitment and survival rates of juveniles is low and this coral is particularly susceptible to both bleaching and white plague disease.