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Microhabitat and shrimp abundance within a Norwegian cold-water coral ecosystem

“…Should protection be the overriding advantage offered by living coral microhabitats over the surrounding dead reef areas, then the complexity and malleability of the Primnoa resedaeformis structure may be the most appealing coral microhabitat for smaller shrimp individuals and species. It has been hypothesised that this species is used as a refuge by shrimp < 3 cm in the Gulf of Alaska (Krieger and Wing, 2002). Although in the current study it is not possible to observe statistically significant differences in shrimp abundances between the two investigated gorgonian species, it is quite possible that the video data under-sampled shrimp to a greater degree in frames dominated by Primnoa resedaeformis than in frames where the less spatially complex Paragorgia arborea coral was in dominance.…”

“…These density estimates are far lower than those reported in the current study, and made from video data recorded by a more intrusive methodology. In the Gulf of Alaska, Krieger and Wing (2002) reported "hundreds of shrimp eyes" reflected from within the branches of Primnoa spp. colonies -although not a strictly quantitative estimate of shrimp density, their rough estimate is comparable with shrimp densities associated with the living gorgonian microhabitats presented here, from the eastern side of the Atlantic.…”

“…The aragonite skeleton of the polyps increases habitat complexity both at and above the seafloor (Rogers, 1999). Dead coral polyps provide hard substrate for sessile filter-feeding organisms (López Correa et al, 2004), with the complexity of the reef morphology providing refuge for mobile organisms such as fish (Husebø et al, 2002;Costello et al, 2005;Ross and Quattrini, 2007;Ballion et al, 2012;D'Onghia et al, 2012), shrimp and other crustaceans (Reed et al, 1982;Mortensen et al, 1995;Krieger and Wing., 2002; Roberts et al, 2008;Le Guilloux et al, 2010;D'Onghia et al, 2012). Local hydrodynamic flow may be influenced by coral structure, enhancing or reducing local depositional rates across a reef, or entrapping suspended material in turbidity loops above the reef structure (Mortensen et al, 1995White, 2007;Wagner et al, 2011).…”

“…Aside from fish (Mortensen et al, 1995;Costello et al, 2005;Wheeler et al, 2005;Söffker et al, 2011) and the larger crustaceans (> 5 cm) (Mortensen et al, 1995), shrimp are amongst the mobile fauna reported in association with CWC scleractinian corals at northeast Atlantic seamounts (Henry and Roberts, 2007), in the Gulf of Mexico (Cordes et al, 2008;Lessard-Pilon et al, 2010) or with gorgonian corals from Atlantic Canada (Krieger and Wing, 2002 Buhl- Mortensen and Mortensen, 2004a). From the CWC scleractinian reefs of the Norwegian margin and fjords, Pandalus borealis, Pandalus montagui (Jonsson et al, 2004), Pandalus propinquus, Lebbeus polaris, Eualis gaimardii and Caridion gordoni (Dons, 1944;Burdon-Jones and TambsLyche, 1960;Jensen and Frederiksen, 1992; summarised in Mortensen and Fosså, 2006;Jonsson et al, 2004) are the most commonly found shrimp species.…”

First record of Zoanthus gigantus Reimer &amp; Tsukahara, 2006&nbsp;(Anthozoa, Hexacorallia) from Indian waters, South Asia

“…In coral reef ecosystem, scleractinian corals have been extensively studied for their role as ecological biobuilders and as habitat for diverse invertebrate and fish communities (Krieger et al 2002, Miller et al 2009). However, taxonomic studies on other cnidarians that are found along with scleractinians and octocorals are few.…”