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Reef-Building Corals of the Upper Mesophotic Zone of the Central Indo-West Pacific

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Book cover Mesophotic Coral Ecosystems

Part of the book series: Coral Reefs of the World ((CORW,volume 12))

Abstract

Species composition, habitat preferences, and community structure of zooxanthellate scleractinian corals in the upper mesophotic zone (UMZ, 30–60 m depth) of the central Indo-West Pacific (IWP) are described. A total of 340 species were recorded from 287 sites from the Andaman Sea across the Coral Triangle to Micronesia and Solomon Islands. This represents almost half of the reef-building coral species present in the central IWP, yet is far from complete. Species were categorized as either UMZ specialists (9 spp.), depth generalists (57 spp.), or with habitat preferences for the lower reef slope (63 spp.), mid-lower slope (172 spp.), or shallow slope (39 spp.). The five most common species in the UMZ were depth generalists (massive Porites spp.) or species that more commonly occur on mid-lower or lower reef slopes above the UMZ, such as Pachyseris speciosa, Acropora granulosa, Oxypora lacera, and Seriatopora hystrix. Only one of the ten most common corals, Acropora elegans, is an UMZ specialist. Percentages of species occurring in the UMZ ranged widely among genera, being highest in Euphyllia (100%), Leptoseris (92%), and Cycloseris (90%) and lower for speciose IWP genera Acropora (47%), Montipora (53%), and Porites (46%). Five broad, mid-lower slope coral communities extended into the UMZ, where seven coral assemblages were defined, each with greater or lesser biogeographic fidelity. We assess our findings in relation to the life histories of the species present and place these in the broader context of the “deep reef refugia” hypothesis.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Tom Bridge for inviting us to write this chapter and for providing valued editorial comments, along with Terry Done and anonymous reviewers. We also thank Kimberly Puglise and Yossi Loya for valued comments. Mark Erdmann kindly provided photos and specimens of corals from the mesophotic zone, and Can Bilgin provided statistical assistance. We are very grateful for the support of the Museum of Tropical Queensland. This work, spanning some 16 years of field research and 1000 h of diving, is a subset of a large set of REA surveys (DeVantier and Turak 2017) and has been supported over the years by numerous governments, organizations, and individuals. These include Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy in many locations including Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Solomon Islands; IUCN and the El Nido Foundation in the Philippines; the Fisheries Department in Brunei Darussalam; New England Aquarium in Thailand; the International Ocean Institute in Indonesia; the National Resource Management and North Sulawesi Watersports Association in Indonesia; Tom Bridge; Tracy Ainsworth; and the Museum of Tropical Queensland for mesophotic surveys to the northern GBR.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Coral Reef Research, Oak Valley, QLD, Australia

    Emre Turak & Lyndon DeVantier

Authors
  1. Emre Turak
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  2. Lyndon DeVantier
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Emre Turak .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, School of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Yossi Loya

  2. National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Silver Spring, MD, USA

    Kimberly A. Puglise

  3. Biodiversity and Geosciences Program, Museum of Tropical Queensland, Queensland Museum Network, Townsville, QLD, Australia

    Tom C.L. Bridge

1 Electronic Supplementary Material

Table 34.S1

Summary of survey locations. Reef types: F fringing, P patch, Pl platform, B barrier, A atoll. Ecoregion (ER) names and numbers are from Corals of the World (Veron et al. 2016) (XLSX 10 kb)

Table 34.S2

List of 340 species recorded in the UMZ from 287 sites in 23 survey locations in 18 ecoregions and their coral community and assemblage details (XLSX 107 kb)

Table 34.S3

Site characteristic details, top 20 most abundant deep (>10 m) and most common (>30 m) hard coral species for the five coral community types. abn is cumulative abundance in all sites where the species was recorded; sites is the total number of sites where the species was recorded. Color coding of the five communities correspond to Figs. 34.4, 34.5 and 34.6 (XLSX 24 kb)

Table 34.S4

Site characteristic details and top 20 most common hard coral species found in the seven UMZ coral assemblages. sites is the total number of sites where the species was recorded. Color coding of the seven assemblages correspond to Figs. 34.8 and 34.9 (XLSX 18 kb)

Table 34.S5

Site characteristic details and top 20 most common hard coral species found in the five UMZ coral sub-assemblages. sites: the total number of sites where the species was recorded. Color coding of the five sub-assemblages correspond to Figs. 34.8 and 34.10 (XLSX 15 kb)

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Turak, E., DeVantier, L. (2019). Reef-Building Corals of the Upper Mesophotic Zone of the Central Indo-West Pacific. In: Loya, Y., Puglise, K., Bridge, T. (eds) Mesophotic Coral Ecosystems. Coral Reefs of the World, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92735-0_34

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