. Cold-water Coral Reefs: out of sight - no longer out of mind. UNEP-WCMC Biodiversity Series 22. Cold-water coral reefs 5. Current state The sophisticated tools required to examine cold-water coral ecosystems in their natural deep-water sur- roundings are expensive and only became available to scientists in the past decade, so information on the state of cold-water coral reefs remains incomplete and is also geographically biased. There is still a lot to learn about these ecosystems, especially in areas where spot investigations have revealed the presence of reefs and cold-water coral associat
. Cold-water Coral Reefs: out of sight - no longer out of mind. UNEP-WCMC Biodiversity Series 22. Cold-water coral reefs 5. Current state The sophisticated tools required to examine cold-water coral ecosystems in their natural deep-water sur- roundings are expensive and only became available to scientists in the past decade, so information on the state of cold-water coral reefs remains incomplete and is also geographically biased. There is still a lot to learn about these ecosystems, especially in areas where spot investigations have revealed the presence of reefs and cold-water coral associations, but where no mapping or more detailed studies have yet been undertal<en. This chapter provides information on the current state of cold-water coral reefs on the basis of case examples from the Atlantic. Indian and Pacific Oceans. Where appropriate, actions taken by national governments to protect, manage and conserve these habitats are referred to. ATLANTIC OCEAN Most of the continental shelves of the northeastern and northwestern parts of the Atlantic Ocean provide suitable 10" Norw/egian Sea 15' 20° 25° 30'. NORWAY "'Tt 58" Figure 17: |A) Map of the Norwegian Shelf showing the trawl fields Ipink) in relation to major coral occurrences (dots). IB) A trawled coral reef near Iverryggen on the Norwegian continental shelf at 190 m depth Map A Jan Helge Fossa, IMR. photo B from Fossa et al. 2002 environmental conditions for cold-water corals to grow. Some of the reefs found in these regions, especially on the eastern seaboard stretching from Norway as far south as West Africa, are among the best studied so far and have provided most of our knowledge on the state of cold-water coral reefs. However, even in these relatively well-known areas of the Atlantic Ocean, new reefs are being discovered on nearly every expedition. The largest Lophelia reef (about 100 km^l was found as recently as 2002 Isee belowl. Norwegian Shelf, northeast Atlantic On the Norwegian S
Size: 1730px × 1445px
Photo credit: © The Book Worm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bhlconsortium, book, bookcollectionbiodiversity, bookleafnumber46
