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Porifera; taxonomy; new species; Aleutian Islands; Gulf of Alaska; Alaska; Poecilosclerida; Axinellida; Dictyoceratida
Ten new species of demosponges, assigned to the orders Poecilosclerida, Axinellida and Dictyoceratida, discovered in the Gulf of Alaska and along the Aleutian Island Archipelago are described and compared to relevant congeners.
marine resources conservation; seamounts; submarine topography
Over the past decade, there has been a strong push to protect seamount communities from threats ranging from deep-sea fishing to harvesting of non-living marine resources. A number of resource protection mechanisms exist for seamounts, ranging from national legislation to multi-lateral agreements to conserve seamounts on the high seas, using the authority of international instruments.
coral reef ecology; deep-sea corals; management; marine ecosystem management; sponges; workshop report
On April 22–23, 2014, scientists and resource managers met in Honolulu to identify critical information needs for deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems in the Pacific Islands Region. The goal of the workshop was to develop a 3-year exploration and research priorities plan.
Deep Sea Corals; Geographical Distribution; Habitat; Imaging; Multibeam Mapping; Octocorallia; Sponges
To inform discussions of deep-sea coral management and fish habitat usage, we are providing the New England Fishery Management Council with a brief review of research surveys conducted in 2013 and 2014. These surveys identified coral-dominated communities in U.S. deep waters (200-250 m depth) of the northern Gulf of Maine. This report focuses only on geographic distributions of octocorals based on direct observations.
Benthos, Deep Sea Corals, Ecology, Habitat, Marine Ecosystem Management, Sponges, Site characterization
Benthic surveys were conducted in the Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary aboard R/V Fulmar, October 3-11, 2012 using the large observation-class remotely operated vehicle Beagle. The purpose of the surveys was to groundtruth mapping data collected in 2011, and to characterize the seafloor biota, particularly corals and sponges, in order to support essential fish habitat designations under Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) and other conservation and management goals under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act (NMSA).
Porifera, Cladorhizidae, Deep Sea Ecology, Deep Sea Biology, taxonomy
Here we describe four additional species, including two species of Asbestopluma and two species of Cladorhiza. We report on species ranges, habitat, and ecology, including one from a chemosynthetic environment that appears to be using methane-oxidizing bacteria as a nutrient source.
Deep Sea Corals, Ecology, Habitat, Sponges
This article presents in situ observations of coral and sponge habitat and of fishes, crabs, and octopods to depths throughout the range of current fishing activities and well beyond those depths anticipated to be affected by fishing activities in the near future in the central Aleutian Islands.
bathymetric maps; hydrographic surveying; multibeam mapping
We assembled 2.1 million National Ocean Service (NOS) bathymetric soundings extending 1,900 km along the Aleutian Islands from Unimak Island in the east to the Russian border in the west, and ranging approximately 500 km north of the central Aleutians to Petrel and Bowers Banks, and also the surrounding deep waters of the southeastern Bering Sea. These bathymetry data are available from the National Geophysical Data Center (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov), which archives and distributes data that were originally collected by the NOS and others.
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Callyspongiidae; Chalinidae; Callyspongia; Cladocroce; Aleutian Islands; North Pacific; Alaska
Four new species of Haplosclerida are described from the Aleutian Islands, Alaska: Callyspongia mucosa n.sp., Cladocroce infundibulum n. sp., Cladocroce attu n. sp. and Cladocroce kiska n. sp. The new species are described and compared to congeners of the region. This is the northernmost record of the genus Callyspongia and the first record of the subgenus Callyspongia from the North Pacific Ocean. To accommodate Cladocroce kiska in its genus the definition has to be broadened to allow sigmas.
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deep-sea coral; refugia; density; photography; conservation
Octocorals had been considered a common component of the seafloor fauna in the Gulf of Maine, but it appears a century of impacts have reduced coral distribution to small refugia. Here we provide a preliminary report of a recent expedition that discovered dense coral garden communities at two sites >200 m depth.