Mesophotic Coral Ecosystems (MCEs) are characterized by the presence of light-dependent corals and associated communities, found at depths ranging from 30 m to 150 m in tropical and subtropical regions. These communities create massive reef structures with diverse but characteristic morphologies and geochemical signatures. In many localities around the world, MCEs are linked physically, and possibly also biologically, to their shallow-water reef counterparts. Therefore, they have the potential to act as refugia for shallow reefs with a source of propagules, contributing to the resilience of shallower coral reefs. However, recently, the new discoveries of MCE communities question the assumption that reef corals equate with shallow water, mainly because MCEs extend depth ranges of many corals.
In this study, I have been investigating the modern and ancient MCEs to compare the biodiversity, community composition and geochemical properties of shallow reefs and MCEs. In addition, I developed methods to study these challenging environments and understand the spatial and vertical distribution of modern MCEs. The main goal was to discover community structure dynamics over space and time for improved prediction of the Deep Reef Refugia Hypothesis (DRRH) in an era of global climate change. The uniqueness and advantages of this study are largely achieved due to the combination of technology, geology, ecology, and molecular approaches. Furthermore, presenting those results to the public via conferences, social media and press releases encourage acting of the public to favour these unexplored and understudied ecosystems.
The combination of the studies conducted in this project provides a major step forward towards recognizing selection forces that are shaping coral population structure and through this understanding the potential of MCEs in serving as “lifeboats” for the world’s coral reefs. Management decisions and conservation efforts could be done only with enough baseline knowledge which does not exist in the case of mesophotic ecosystems, hence the overall objective of this project was to gain new knowledge and methodologies for the benefit of exploring and conserving the mesophotic ecosystems.
