Abstract
Cold-water corals build extensive reefs on the seafloor that are oases of biodiversity, biomass, and organic matter processing rates. The reefs baffle sediments, and when coral growth and sedimentation outweigh ambient sedimentation, carbonate mounds of tens to hundreds of meters high and several kilometres wide can form. Because coral mounds form over ten-thousands of years, their development process remains elusive. While several environmental factors influence mound development, the mounds also have a major impact on their environment. This feedback between environment and mounds, and how this drives mound development is the focus of this paper. Based on the similarity of spatial coral mound patterns and patterns in self-organized ecosystems, we provide a new perspective on coral mound development. In accordance with the theory of self-organization through scale-dependent feedbacks, we first elicit the processes that are known to affect mound development, and might cause scale-dependent feedbacks. Then we demonstrate this concept with model output from a study on the Logachev area, SW Rockall Trough margin. Spatial patterns in mound provinces are the result of a complex set of interacting processes. Spatial self-organisation provides a framework in which to place and compare these processes, so as to assess if and how they contribute to pattern formation in coral mounds.
Highlights
Cold-water coral ecosystems are true oases amidst a deep-sea desert, with higher biodiversity (Henry and Roberts, 2007), biomass (Bongiorni et al, 2010; Demopoulos et al, 2014) and organic matter processing rates (Cathalot et al, 2015; de Froe et al, 2019) as compared to the off-reef soft-sediment seafloor at similar water depth.When scleractinian cold-water corals grow, they build a structurally complex framework consisting of a mosaic of living corals, dead coral branches, associated fauna and coral rubble
Coral mound formation is tightly linked to coral growth and sediment infill (Roberts et al, 2006)
We provide a new perspective on cold-water coral mound formation which could serve as such a conceptual framework
Summary
Cold-water coral ecosystems are true oases amidst a deep-sea desert, with higher biodiversity (Henry and Roberts, 2007), biomass (Bongiorni et al, 2010; Demopoulos et al, 2014) and organic matter processing rates (Cathalot et al, 2015; de Froe et al, 2019) as compared to the off-reef soft-sediment seafloor at similar water depth. Coral mounds have a positive effect on coral growth by accelerating currents and enhancing turbulence, because of the formation of lee waves and non-linear hydrodynamic features such as hydraulic jumps and internal bores (Mohn et al, 2014; Van Haren et al, 2014; Mienis et al, 2009b) Such internal waves can cause vertical water excursions of as much as 200 m (Mienis et al, 2007), which enhance downward transport of nutritious particles to the mounds (Duineveld et al, 2007; Davies et al, 2009; Kenchington et al, 2017). One such scaledependent negative feedback is caused by the filtering activity of the cold-water coral reef community that depletes the water of food particles around or downstream of the reefs (Wagner et al, 2011; Soetaert et al, 2016) Another negative feedback might come from erosional forces such as scouring, the process whereby sediment is eroded away around the base of mounds, due to the acceleration of currents. The strength of the negative effect decreases until it is gone at about a distance of 3 km from the reefs
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