Mesophotic.org: a repository for scientific information on mesophotic ecosystems

Abstract

Mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) and temperate mesophotic ecosystems (TMEs) occur at depths of roughly 30–150 m depth and are characterized by the presence of photosynthetic organisms despite reduced light availability. Exploration of these ecosystems dates back several decades, but our knowledge remained extremely limited until about a decade ago, when a renewed interest resulted in the establishment of a rapidly growing research community. Here, we present the ‘mesophotic.org’ database, a comprehensive and curated repository of scientific literature on mesophotic ecosystems. Through both manually curated and automatically extracted metadata, the repository facilitates rapid retrieval of available information about particular topics (e.g. taxa or geographic regions), exploration of spatial/temporal trends in research and identification of knowledge gaps. The repository can be queried to comprehensively obtain available data to address large-scale questions and guide future research directions. Overall, the ‘mesophotic.org’ repository provides an independent and open-source platform for the ever-growing research community working on MCEs and TMEs to collate and expedite our understanding of the occurrence, composition and functioning of these ecosystems. Database URL: http://mesophotic.org/

Mesophotic coral ecosystems of French Polynesia are hotspots of alpha and beta generic diversity for scleractinian assemblages

“…They are characterized by the presence of light‐dependent corals from the order Scleractinia and occur in the tropical and subtropical oceans between 30 and 150 m depth, in the twilight ocean's photic zone (Ginsburg, 2007). Our knowledge of the diversity and community composition of coral reefs decreases steadily with increasing depth (Bongaerts et al, 2019; Pyle & Copus, 2019). This decrease is due to the many technical and logistical challenges involved in quantitative sampling beyond compressed air SCUBA (self‐contained underwater breathing apparatus) diving frontiers at mesophotic depths (Kahng et al, 2014; Sinniger et al, 2016).…”

Mesophotic coral communities escape thermal coral bleaching in French Polynesia

“…Because temperature and light attenuate with depth, it has been proposed that mesophotic coral assemblages (i.e. below 30 m; [17]) may act as a spatial refuge for corals during global and local bleaching events [18]. However, despite extensive debate regarding the overlap in community structure [19,20] and connectivity between shallow and mesophotic coral habitats [21,22], there are very few studies that actually assess bleaching well into lower mesophotic depths [23,24].…”

A generalized light‐driven model of community transitions along coral reef depth gradients

“…The global depth record for photosynthetic hard corals currently stands at 165 m (Maragos & Jokiel, 1986; Pyle & Copus, 2019). Despite this, only about 800 studies (Bongaerts et al, 2019) have considered reefs deeper than 30 m. We refer to this understudied depth zone as the mesophotic, and define mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) by the presence of light‐dependent corals and associated communities (Hinderstein et al., 2010). MCEs are typically found at depths ranging from 30–40 to 150 m in tropical and subtropical regions (Kahng et al., 2010; Lesser, Slattery, & Leichter, 2009; Puglise, Hinderstein, Marr, Dowgiallo, & Martinez, 2009; Pyle & Copus, 2019).…”