The Yellow Coral Dendrophyllia cornigera in a Warming Ocean

Giorgio Castellan,Lorenzo Angeletti,Paolo Montagna,Marco Taviani

doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00692

Abstract

Ocean warming is expected to impinge detrimentally on marine ecosystems worldwide up to impose extreme environmental conditions capable to potentially jeopardize the good ecological status of scleractinian coral reefs at shallow and bathyal depths. The integration of literature records with newly acquired Remotely Operated Vehicle data provides an overview of the geographic distribution of the temperate coral Dendrophyllia cornigera spanning the eastern Atlantic Ocean to the whole Mediterranean Sea. In addition, we extracted temperature values at each occurrence site to define the natural range of this coral, known to maintain its physiological processes even at 16°C. Our results document a temperature range between ~7-17°C, suggesting that the natural thermal tolerance of this eurybathic coral may represent an advantage for its survival in a progressively warming ocean.

Highlights

More efficient remote-sensing technologies, advanced SCUBA diving techniques, increasing quality of remotely operated vehicle (ROV) (Remotely Operated Vehicles) images, and maneuverability have sensibly bettered our in-depth understanding of shallow-to-deep marine habitats
Despite D. cornigera being commonly recognized as an occasional species in cold-water corals (CWCs) ecosystems dominated by M. oculata and D. pertusum (Chimienti et al, 2019; Rueda et al, 2019, with references therein), corals of the genus Dendrophyllia are a consistent component of temperate coral ecosystems since at least the Miocene
Dendrophyllia corals from this geological period have been observed with high abundances in on-land Mediterranean CWCs fossil occurrences, being present in the Pliocene and the Early-Middle Pleistocene records (Vertino et al, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

More efficient remote-sensing technologies, advanced SCUBA diving techniques, increasing quality of ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicles) images, and maneuverability have sensibly bettered our in-depth understanding of shallow-to-deep marine habitats. Our perception of how global climate changes are affecting marine environments is still limited, there is a growing awareness that these may negatively influence marine ecosystems (Poloczanska et al, 2013; Gattuso et al, 2015) This holds true, in particular, for coral biocostructions, known for supporting and enhancing biodiversity, and providing unique ecosystems services (Hoegh-Guldberg et al, 2017). Available forecasts provide quantitative scenarios of the possible future state of the ocean, prospecting that oceans will be warmer, more acidic and stratified, less productive, and oxygenated than at present by the end of the 21st century (Pachauri et al, 2014) If these predictions come true, stenoecius marine organisms will be facing extreme conditions in the near future, calling for adaptation or failure. Decreasing ocean pH may alter coral calcification capacity and metabolism, though with responses that appear to be speciesspecific (McCulloch et al, 2012; Rodolfo-Metalpa et al, 2015; Movilla, 2019)

Methods

Results

Conclusion