HERMIONE news

Abstract

As a contribution to the activities of HERMIONE WP4, NIOZ biologists Gerard Duineveld and Marc Lavaleye, and geologists Tjeerd van Weering and Furu Mienis (presently MARUM, Bremen) established a trans-Atlantic collaboration with the group of Steve Ross at the University of North Carolina (Wilmington, USA) to study and compare structure and functioning of cold water coral (CWC) habitats on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Deep coral habitats, dominated by the stony coral Lophelia pertusa, are widespread along the US east coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, and have been subject of many US investigations since 2001, funded by NOAA as part of their Ocean Explorer Program. With the use of submersible Johnson-Sea-Link, these US efforts have led to highly detailed descriptions of the reef systems and their inhabitants. At the same time in Europe, FP6-funded programs like HERMES enabled NIOZ and partners to make progress in unravelling the forcing environmental factors in European CWC habitats by means of long-term bottom-lander observations.