Welcome to the new and improved Lophelia.org!

5 years after it first went online, the internet's most detailed website on cold-water corals has been totally redesigned and updated. With a host of new features including regular Twitter updates, a dedicated Email Discussion Group and YouTube video channel, the new Lophelia.org is ready to help you stay up to date with the latest developments cold-water coral research and conservation around the world.

Dive in and explore the new content!

The 2006 Science paper 'REEFS OF THE DEEP: THE BIOLOGY AND GEOLOGY OF COLD-WATER CORAL ECOSYSTEMS'  has been identified as one of the most cited papers on cold-water corals in recent years. On the Science Watch website, J. Murray Roberts, one of the co-authors, answers a few questions about the paper, how he became involved in cold-water coral research and his future research direction. 

The report has been compiled by leading experts as part of the United Nations Environment Programme - World Conservation Monitoring Centre's (UNEP-WCMC) Biodiversity Series, and the UNEP Regional Seas Technical Report series. It is aimed at boosting the protection and sustainable management of these long-overlooked diverse and ancient habitats that, being slow-growing and long-surviving, are particularly vulnerable to human activities such as bottom-trawl fishing. 

The report also draws attention to how little is currently known - a global map of sponges does not yet exist - and demonstrates the crucial need to develop fuller knowledge and understanding of these habitats together with raising awareness as to why sponge grounds are important and the threats they face.

Press coverage of the report has been extensive, including features in the Scotsman, Daily Express, the Sydney Morning Herald and on the BBC.

This tool is part of the I2I - Inquiry to Insight - e-learning project, developed for students to learn about Climate Change in order to take action. The project has also created a virtual lab, where you can set up your own virtual ocean acidification experiment. In the virtual lab, you can complete the procedural steps of the experiment: setting up replicate cultures, feeding the larvae, making water changes, and observing the changes in the larvae over time. Then, you set up slides for measurement (morphometric) analysis. You then make the larval measurements yourselves on a subset of the larvae (a different subset for each person), calculate the treatment means, and then can compare your subsample results to the entire statistical sample. The data you analyze are actual data addressing this question gathered by I2I scientists

Evolution Lost, produced by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), uses the latest IUCN Red List of Threatened Species data and the WWF Living Planet Index population data to give us a complete picture of the state of the world’s vertebrates.

The report provides for the first time information on population trends for all vertebrate groups (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish) and information on the threatened status of reptiles and fish. With this new data it is possible to estimate the conservation status of all vertebrates.

Over the past four decades terrestrial mammal populations are estimated to have declined by a quarter, marine fish by a fifth and freshwater fish by as much as 65%. Evolution Lost also highlights entire lineages such as marine turtles, pandas, rhinos and Darwin’s frogs, that are on the brink of being lost. The report concludes with a call for increased conservation capacity that takes an ecosystem level approach, and for serious discussions about overconsumption, population growth and poor governance

Evolution Lost can be viewed as an online book here 

The US expedition, Life on the Edge:  Extreme Corals 2010 has just set sail from North Carolina, bound for Florida.  During their 15-day mission, a team of researchers and educators will explore new features found on acoustic seafloor maps from the Gulf of Mexico to northern Florida east of Jacksonville. Mission scientists will map live coral and associated animals and strive to understand the importance of deep coral ecosystems as fisheries habitat, reservoirs of ocean biodiversity, and recorders of past changes in climate and ocean conditions. The cruise is led by Chief Scientists, Dr. Steve Ross (University of North Carolina Wilmington) and Dr. Sandra Brooke (Marine Conservation Biology Institute). North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences educator Mike Dunn (ncmuseummike) and science teacher Beverly Owens (owensscience) will be blogging from the ship during the mission.

Cambridge University hosted the kick-off meeting of the UK Ocean Acidification Research Programme in January 2011. 

The 5 year Programme is the UK’s response to growing concerns over ocean acidification and is jointly funded by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

The programme will collaborate with other ocean acidification programms from around the world and aim to:

1.  Reduce uncertainties in predictions of carbonate chemistry changes and their effects on marine biogeochemistry, ecosystems and other components of the Earth System

2.  Understand the responses to ocean acidification, and other climate change related stressors, by marine organisms, biodiversity and ecosystems and to improve understanding of their  resistance or susceptibility to acidification

3.  Provide data and effective advice to policy makers and managers of marine bioresources on the potential size and timescale of risks, to allow for development of appropriate mitigation and adaptation strategies.

The benthic consortium of the programme, led by Dr Steve Widdicombe, brings together 25 key researchers from 12 UK organisations to begin to quantify the impact of ocean acidification and warming on the health and activity of key benthic organisms. As part of this consortium, scientists at Heriot Watt University will invesigate the physiological and functional response of the cold-water coral, Lophelia pertusa to ocean acidification and warming. Further information can be found at the Benthic Consortium website.

Identifying and characterising those bacteria will not only increase our understanding of microbial diversity, but could also uncover a new source of enzymes or pharmaceuticals.

Visit the new Microbiology section to learn all about this fascinating area of research.

Deepwater Horizon - 1 year on.

 It is now a year since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, which resulted in 205.8 million gallons of crude oil being released into the Gulf of Mexico. For 3 months, oil flowed into the Gulf from the gushing wellhead, making it the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. The environmental consequences of the spill are still being felt today, and are likely to be for a long time yet.

 Over 8000 species live within the area of the oil spill, including more than 1,200 fish, 200 birds, 1,400 molluscs, 1,500 crustaceans, 4 sea turtles, and 29 marine mammals. Evidence is emerging that some of the cold-water corals in the Gulf may have been damaged by the oil spill, following a research cruise by a team of scientists led by Charles Fisher from Penn State University.

 Seven miles southwest of the spill at a depth of 1400 m, a community of deep sea corals (gorgonians and Madrepora) was discovered in November 2010, including many recently dead colonies and others that clearly are dying. Visible damage included bare skeleton where coral tissue had sloughed off and was often covered with what appeared to be decaying tissue. Some coral skeletons had no live tissue visible. Even the behaviour of the associated invertebrates, such as brittle stars, appeared impaired. None of the scientists, many of whom have worked in the Gulf for over a decade, had ever seen anything like this.

In November, the human occupied submersible Alvin made its first foray into post-spill Gulf waters, led by Chief Scientist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia.Sediment and water columns samples were collected in the vicinity (2.5 miles and further out) of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead.

In December 2010, a team of NSF scientists revisited these deep-water corals using the submersible Alvin to carefully document the bottom and to collect samples of animals and sediment. The team also positioned a time-lapse camera, which operated until February, to create a record of how the corals repair or deteriorate in response to their recent damage.

 An area of particular concern in regards to cold-water corals was Viosca Knoll, a site approximately 20 miles from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that hosts the largest known concentration of the cold-water coral, Lophelia pertusa, in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists have observed no obvious physical impacts on these communities, with the corals behaving normally with no signs of distress. However, they may have suffered genetic mutations or lose their ability to reproduce, and thus these sites are being monitored for sub-lethal effects by USGS scientists. It is too early to draw conclusions about the environmental impact of this devastating oil spill.

 Further details of the spill and impacts can be found on Wikipedia, the BBC , NOAA and in a recent paper in Plos Biology. Image courtesy of the BBC

Ocean acidification is a recently recognised phenomenon which results from the growing quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere. Much of this gas is being absorbed at the ocean surface, pushing seawater down the pH scale towards acidity and posing a potential threat to marine ecosystems and those dependent on them. As scientific research reveals more about how the oceans and the life they contain might be affected, there is a need to engage with a wider community including policy makers, environmental managers and the general public to understand what is happening, how we might be affected and what actions could be taken to reduce any risks.

The film brings together a wide range of stakeholders including HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco, school children, a Plymouth fishmonger, a UK government Chief Scientific Adviser, representatives from industry and policy making departments, as well as a group of internationally recognised expert scientists.

It has become obvious that each of the interest groups has its own concerns and level of understanding. Dr Carol Turley OBE, who led the film production team at PML in her role as Knowledge Exchange Coordinator for the UK Ocean Acidification Research Programme, explains this can lead to confusion and misunderstanding: “Scientists are reticent to make long-term predictions until they have a sound scientific basis for doing so; policy makers often require immediate answers that can lead to timely solutions, while industry needs to plan ahead; and the public want to know how they may be affected and what is being done to face any likely threats. Such a diversity of information requirements sounds like a recipe for confusion. This film highlights the need for clear communication at the earliest opportunity to ensure that all stakeholder groups go forwards with an understanding of each others’ positions and responsibilities, by using a real example of how this is already working within the ocean acidification community.”

Although the final impacts are still not clear, ocean acidification is relatively newly recognised, happening now and should be a concern for all of us as it has the potential to affect everyone. However, making sure the message gets through can be a real challenge. Speaking the same language, understanding the different requirements of the various interest groups and accepting the importance of working together is the first step.

Dr Faith Culshaw from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), who commissioned the film, added “Communication between these groups is essential if we are to face up to the world’s pressing environmental challenges. This short film, which we at NERC were pleased to support financially, shows that getting all interests around the same table to face up to a challenge, understand what needs to be done and sharing the responsibility can and does work.”

Prof Dan Lafolley, Chair of the international Reference User Group on Ocean Acidification, is clear about the importance of this film "Everyone should see it. A powerful new film. Fantastically clear, it gives a fresh look at ocean acidification - one of the most important environmental issues of the modern generation".

The 12 minute film “Ocean acidification: Connecting science, industry, policy and public”, can be viewed via: www.oceanacidification.org and www.pml.ac.uk or directly on: http://www.youtube.com/user/PMLAdministrator?feature=mhee.