Doping modulates the electronic, chemical, and mechanical properties of materials. For a two-dimensional tungsten disulfide, although an isolated molybdenum substitution only perturbs the host lattice negligibly, it couples strongly to common lattice defects such as sulfur vacancies, as verified by state-of-the-art electron microscopy and atomistic modeling techniques. This coupling can be potentially exploited to controllably segregate undesirable defects away from the active areas of 2D crystalline devices.