Cold-Water Coral ecosystems in the Alboran Sea. Highlights from the Eurofleets+ OASIS Cruise

Summary

I will present the research highlights of the EU Eurofleets+OASIS expedition, and the scientific rational behind it. Cold-Water Corals (CWCs) are ecosystem engineers with a paramount importance in maintaining high biodiversity in the ocean and in providing several ecosystem services. The high vulnerability of these slow-growing systems to increasing human threats has brought to define specific directives aimed to protect and conserve them. Yet, we still miss comprehensive information on their exact distribution, and on the hydrodynamic constraints providing suitable nutritional bridges between surface productivity and these deep-sea communities. Whereas the Mediterranean Sea hosts several CWC provinces with sparse colonies in a variable state of conservation, Alboran is the unique basin to host uncommon thriving CWCs, building extensive reefs and mounds in space and time. The reason for such a unique near-pristine state is still under debate. OASIS Cruise (Thriving Cold-Water Coral Reefs in the Mediterranean Sea), funded by EU H2020 Eurofleets+ Project, has been aimed to explore and monitor these coral assemblages, located on Cabliers and Catifas provinces, in the eastern Alboran Sea. Through the acquisition of ROV footage along with the deployment of benthic landers and moored instruments, we unveiled new flourishing CWC assemblages and will adopt this region as a natural environmental deep-sea laboratory to (hopefully) advance the understanding of their functioning, monitoring long-term hydrography and hydrodynamics across interacting spatial scales.

Brief biography

I am a senior scientist at ICM-CSIC and I previously worked for several years as research scientist at the National Oceanography Centre of Southampton, UK. My current research implies the use of high-resolution seafloor mapping, video imaging, seafloor and sub-seafloor samples and benthic landers to understand the spatio-temporal interactions between biotic and abiotic components of Cold-Water Coral reefs on ecologically-relevant geo-forms, such as submarine canyons, seamounts and coral mounds. My deep-sea research has been mainly conducted in the Mediterranean Sea and on the NE Atlantic and Pacific Margins using oceanographic vessels of several research institutions, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). I participated in over 50 oceanographic expeditions and served as Chief Scientist on 10 of them.