Reef-Building Deep-Water Scleractinians
Different from the shallow-sea coral reefs that develop in tropical to temperate seas are the deep-water reefs of dendritic scleractinians at depths of 60 to 1,500 meters, where the water temperature on the seabed is 4-20oC and there are no symbiotic algae. Such reefs are mainly distributed from central Africa in the East Atlantic to the coasts of Northern Europe and the waters around North America in the West Atlantic, the southern tip of South America, and New Zealand. Due to the slow growth of deep-water corals, they generally form reefs on the scale of dozens to hundreds of meters. The height of such reefs is several meters to several dozen meters above the surrounding seabed. However, it is difficult for a thick convex topographical structure to form. Such reefs often become deep-sea diversity hot spots. Currently known reef-building deep-water scleractinians of importance include Enallopsammía profunda, Goniocorella dumosa, Lophelia pertusa, Madrepora oculata, Oculina varicose, and Solenosmilia variabilis.
In this exhibit are three types of scleractinian reef fragments (1-centimeter scale bar below the figures). All were obtained by the crew of the RV Ocean Researcher 5 during sampling trawls at depths of 460-1,070 meters in the South China Sea. The depths at which each specimen grew is not known. In addition, they may be from one or more deep-sea coral reefs.
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Figure 1. Scientific name: Enallopsammia rostrata (Pourtalès, 1878)
Common name: Beaked stony coral
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Cnidaria
Class Anthozoa (corals)
Order Scleractinia
Family Dendrophylliidae
Genus Enallopsammia
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Figure 2. Scientific name: Madrepora arbuscular (Moseley, 1881)
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Cnidaria
Class Anthozoa (corals)
Order Scleractinia
Family Oculinidae
Genus Madrepora
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Figure 3. Scientific name: Lophelia pertusa (Linnaeus, 1758)
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Cnidaria
Class Anthozoa (corals)
Order Scleractinia
Family Caryophylliidae
Genus Lophelia
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