Global habitat suitability for framework-forming cold-water corals

Area of Science:

• Marine biology
• Oceanography
• Conservation science

Background:

• Predictive habitat models are crucial for identifying species distributions and vulnerable ecosystems.
• Deep-sea research faces challenges with data accuracy, absence data, and limited spatial resolution of environmental factors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop global habitat suitability models for five framework-forming scleractinian coral species.
• To address limitations in deep-sea predictive modeling by generating high-resolution seafloor condition maps.

Main Methods:

• Utilized high-resolution global bathymetry to resample environmental data (e.g., World Ocean Atlas) to a 30-arc second resolution.
• Generated continuous global grids for environmental, chemical, and physical variables.
• Incorporated an increased number of coral presence records into habitat models.

Main Results:

• Depth, temperature, aragonite saturation state, and salinity were key factors for cold-water coral habitat suitability.
• Suitable coral habitats are predominantly found on the continental shelves and slopes of the Atlantic, South Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
• Identified numerous small-scale features (e.g., seamounts) with high potential for supporting cold-water corals across all ocean basins.

Conclusions:

• The study provides high-resolution maps of potential deep-sea coral habitats, improving model accuracy.
• Field validation is essential to confirm model predictions and assess the utility for marine protected area designation.
• These models can aid in identifying vulnerable marine ecosystems and reducing bycatch in commercial fisheries.