Deep water corals

• Deep water trawling has overexploited deep water fish populations
• Coral polyps on this coral do not have symbiotic algae.
• Lack of symbiotic algae causes a slow growth rate hence a slow recovery from potential damage
• They require turbid areas with a fast a current so they retrieve enough nutrients
• They have limited research as discovered in 1970s
• They often support large biomass of fish
• They provide shelter, food, breeding sites for deep water fish populations
• Expansion of usage of oil and gas poses a future threat
• Increase in CO2 levels is gradually causing the acidifacation of oceans
• Designated protected areas can be established
• We can extend current management schemes to include not only tropical but also deep water corals
• Ocean acidification reduces pH due to more carbon dioxide being absorbed into the ocean, resulting in calcium carbonate, resulting in reduced enzyme activity and therefore reduced growth
• Temperature affects them, surpasses the optimum, therefore

  beyond there tolerance, so there is a slower growth rate and deterioration of interspecies relationships
• demersal trawling and damaging fishing methods scraps away the sea bed and upwells sediment, this can smother the coral
• long lining resulting in ghost fishing due to discarded or broken fishing equipment, this can snag the corals and damage them
• can be impacted by construction and exploration
• Can be impacted by oil pipelines and there potential to spill and pollute the water, this can cover and kill the coral
• Oil exploration or future mineral exploration may directly harm the corals
• They have no zooxanthallae, they rely on currents to retrieve essential nutrients, a change in current direction could threaten there survival