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Marine scientists from the KAUST Red Sea Research Center have operated the first measurements of deep-sea coral from the Red Sea. The continuing research, first reported in the October 2013 edition of Nature’s Scientific Reports (DOI: 10. 1038/srep02802), represents a major shift in the current understanding of temperature and salinity resilience of deep-sea corals.
The existing body of knowledge around deep-sea corals focuses almost exclusively on cold-water environments. Deep-sea corals look different from the shallow water corals found in colorful reefs typically explored during snorkeling or diving trips. Deep-sea corals grow at a slower rate. Because corals need nutrients to develop, distinct ecosystems and environmental changes determine their attributes.
In colder temperatures, the food corals need to survive decays at a slower rate, while warm water accelerates turnover. As the Red Sea is very warm, it has long been a question as to whether or not deep-sea corals were present.
As Prof. Christian Voolstra, from the KAUST Red Sea Research Center, explained, the last known study of deep-sea corals in the Red Sea dates back to about a hundred years ago. A study was first published by an Austrian researcher named E. Marenzeller, but biological measurements were not available at that time. “So we basically followed the discovery a hundred years later with new instruments,” Voolstra said.
In December 2011, a team from KAUST set out on a ship for seven days to find deep-sea corals in the Red Sea. After generating a topographic map of the seabed, they employed an underwater robot to monitor promising locations and were successful in retrieving specimens from three different species at depths of 300-750 meters and at temperatures exceeding twenty degrees Celsius.
“This discovery basically extends known ecosystem boundaries for deep-sea corals, and we can no longer use the term deep-water corals as synonymous to cold-water corals ,” said Voolstra. When the KAUST group presented these findings at a conference in the Netherlands in April of 2012, people were excited about these results because they came from outside where it’s believed that corals can live.
“We learn that nature always finds its way,” said Voolstra. “According to theoretical expectations, these corals are not allowed to exist; yet you find them.”
