About Lophelia.org

Lophelia.org has been developed by two researchers at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), as part of a wider project raising awareness of the UK's deep-sea habitats, see below.

Andrew Davies is an ecologist with background in geographical information systems, data handling and video / image analysis. Andrew has been working on cold-water corals and their conservation since 2005.

J. Murray Roberts studied algal-invertebrate symbiosis before moving to SAMS in 1997 to work with the late Prof. John D Gage on cold-water coral ecosystems.

We welcome comments, suggestions and new links.

Please e-mail Andrew.Davies@sams.ac.uk

Deep-sea Conservation for the United Kingdom

This website has been developed as part of a wider project to raise awareness of the deep-sea heritage of the UK. The Deep-sea Conservation for the UK (DC-UK) project tackles three central elements – biodiversity, management policy and public awareness. DC-UK provides information on threats to offshore biodiversity, practical case studies to help future conservation management and disseminates this information to a wider public (you can visit the DC-UK website here).

Lophelia.org is being developed as a general resource on cold-water corals and ecosystems. Accessible to all, the site covers general information on cold-water corals and is named after the dominant reef framework-forming species in the north-east Atlantic, Lophelia pertusa.

The site aims to:

1. Raise awareness of the biology, conservation and threats to cold-water corals.
2. Provide this information to a general audience with more detailed information and links available through a series of 'Go Deeper' levels.
3. Become a central repository for information on cold-water corals on the internet.

This website has been developed by the Scottish Association of Marine Science, under the DC-UK project sponsored by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.