Environmental forcing of the Campeche cold-water coral province, southern Gulf of Mexico

Abstract

Abstract.With an extension of > 40 km 2 the recently discovered Campeche cold-water coral province located at the northeastern rim of the Campeche Bank in the southern Gulf of Mexico belongs to the largest coherent cold-water coral areas discovered so far. The Campeche province consists of numerous 20-40 m-high elongated coral mounds that are developed in intermediate water depths of 500 to 600 m. The mounds are colonized by a vivid cold-water coral ecosystem that covers the upper flanks and summits. The rich coral community is dominated by the framework-building Scleractinia Enallopsammia profunda and Lophelia pertusa, while the associated benthic megafauna shows a rather scarce occurrence. The recent environmental setting is characterized by a high surface water production caused by a local upwelling center and a dynamic bottom-water regime comprising vigorous bottom currents, obvious temporal variability, and strong density contrasts, which all together provide optimal conditions for the growth of cold-water corals. This setting -potentially supported by the diel vertical migration of zooplankton in the Campeche area -controls the delivering of food particles to the corals. The Campeche cold-water coral province is, thus, an excellent example highlighting the importance of the oceanographic setting in securing the food supply for the development of large and vivid cold-water coral ecosystems.

Paleoseawater density reconstruction and its implication for cold‐water coral carbonate mounds in the northeast Atlantic through time

“…Rüggeberg et al [2007] already presented the existence of a well-expressed pycnocline (density gradient) as important parameter for the CWC ecosystem. This was subsequently identified as an important factor in understanding the recent distribution of cold-water coral reefs in the NE Atlantic [Dullo et al, 2008;De Mol et al, 2011;Rüggeberg et al, 2011;Flögel et al, 2014] and the Gulf of Mexico [Hübscher et al, 2010;Hebbeln et al, 2014]. Here we argue that the pycnocline represented by the Paleoceanography 10.1002/2015PA002859 density range of σ θ = 27.5 ± 0.2 kg m À3 also controls the development of CWC reefs and contemporaneously of the carbonate mounds during the past~300 kyr.…”

“….65 kg m À3 [De Mol et al, 2011;Flögel et al, 2014;Somoza et al, 2014;Sánchez et al, 2014]. This density range is also characterized by a steep gradient, which is an increase in seawater density within a short bathymetric range [Dullo et al, 2008;Hebbeln et al, 2014], favoring the widespread development of nepheloid layers [Dickson and McCave, 1986;Rice et al, 1991;Mazzini et al, 2012]. Due to this pycnocline, horizontal currents develop and internal waves may propagate carrying nutrition and may even influence the distribution of larvae [Dullo et al, 2008;Henry et al, 2014].…”

Cold-Water Coral Habitats in Submarine Canyons of the Bay of Biscay

“…Most of these CWCs need hard substrate to settle, with the exception of most seapens, some scleractinians (predominantly solitary) and some gorgonian species . CWCs are filter-feeders that rely on currents to deliver food particles (Wagner et al, 2012) and vertical migration of zooplankton (Carlier et al, 2009;Mienis et al, 2012;Wagner et al, 2012;Hebbeln et al, 2014).…”

Food selectivity and processing by the cold-water coral <i>Lophelia pertusa</i>

“…Moreover, organic matter supply to cold-water reefs is temporally variable due to seasonality in organic matter production in the surface ocean and the dynamic physical environment in which cold-water reefs occur (Duineveld et al, 2007;Davies et al, 2009;Findlay et al, 2013;Hebbeln et al, 2014;Mohn et al, 2014). Freshly hatched Artemia salina nauplii, which are often used as food in aquarium studies of scleractinians, were increasingly taken up by the cold-water coral L. pertusa with increasing concentration in the incubation vessel (Purser et al, 2010), indicating that L. pertusa responds to changes in food supply.…”