CenSeam Newsletter V Welcome to CenSeam s fifth Newsletter. November 2006

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Gunther (the artist of the plankton image above) Rhian Waller talks about cold water corals DAWG

1 CenSeam Newsletter V Welcome to CenSeam s fifth Newsletter. November 2006 Contents Lets get ready to Rumble, CenSeam voyage II CenSeam profiles artist Tim Gunther (the artist of the plankton image above) Rhian Waller talks about cold water corals DAWG goes to the UN Education and Outreach: CenSeam goes to school What s happening with seamounts? - Seamount Conferences/Meetings - Announcements

CenSeam News Lets get ready to rumble! Second CenSeam Voyage The Rumble III voyage (see further details and daily logs on the CenSeam web page: http://censeam.niwa.co.nz/outreach/rum ble/censeam_rumble) returned on the 16 th of October.

Visiting scientists John Dower and Jen Tyler (from University of Victoria, Canada) get to grips with the bongo plankton samples However, the work has only just begun.

The Rumble III team aboard the NIWA vessel Tangaroa.

2 CenSeam News Lets get ready to rumble! Second CenSeam Voyage The Rumble III voyage (see further details and daily logs on the CenSeam web page: ble/censeam_rumble) returned on the 16 th of October. The aim of the voyage was to determine the influence that Rumble III seamount (in New Zealand) has on the water column. Visiting scientists John Dower and Jen Tyler (from University of Victoria, Canada) get to grips with the bongo plankton samples However, the work has only just begun. In the coming months the data collected will be analysed in greater detail, and the samples collected will be distributed amongst taxonomists and chemists. The Rumble III team aboard the NIWA vessel Tangaroa. The voyage brought together a team of physicists and biologists During the course of the week a mooring was successfully deployed, and collected from the summit of Rumble III giving a unique insight into the currents on this seamount. In conjunction with this, the Rumble team sampled the water column on, and around, the seamount using a CTD, and collected samples for algal biomass, isotopes, nutrients, bacteria, mircrozooplankton, and picoplankton. Larger animals were also collected using bongo nets, beam trawls, and epibenthic sleds. Photographs were taken of the seamount, revealing some barren volcanic landscape as well as some coldwater corals and other animals. Announcement: Voyage to Tasmanian Seamounts Coming soon.. Feature Artist Tim Gunther

Creature Feature: : Cold-water corals by Rhian Waller, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI),, USA Tim is a freelance scientific illustrator from Solana Beach California.

Tim has done extensive research ranging from whale shark feeding mechanisms in the Bahia de los Angeles, to white seabass pathology at the Hubb's Sea World White Seabass Hatchery in Carlsbad.

3 Creature Feature: : Cold-water corals by Rhian Waller, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI),, USA Tim is a freelance scientific illustrator from Solana Beach California. He studied marine biology at the University of California Santa Barbara, and received a Masters certificate in scientific illustration from the University of California Santa Cruz. Tim has done extensive research ranging from whale shark feeding mechanisms in the Bahia de los Angeles, to white seabass pathology at the Hubb's Sea World White Seabass Hatchery in Carlsbad. Since working as an intern at the Marine Biological Laboratory Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Tim s clients include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, several international universities, environmental consulting firms, various aquariums, natural history museums, scientific journals, and magazines. The term deep-water coral can be a little ambiguous, what sounds like a simple term actually encompasses five different kinds of corals Scleractinians (Stony Corals), Zooanthids, Antipatharians (Black Corals), Octocorals (Soft Corals) and Stylasterids (Hydrocorals), with species in each of these groups occurring in shallow waters. To confuse the matter further, some of these individual species can actually be found in both shallow and deep environments, which is why many researchers are now calling species that are generally found on deep-sea seamounts, continental shelves and ridges Cold Water Corals, reflecting the cold waters (~6 o C) they are found in. Tim utilizes a variety of media to convey large amounts of information through illustration. His illustrations enable researchers to elucidate their findings in a way that photographs simply can t. Tim is now living in Southern California, and is currently working on a series of aquatic habitat illustrations for the University of Newcastle. More of Tim s work can be seen by logging onto Tim can also be reached via at tim@gunthergraphics.biz. Rhian Waller (WHOI) holds up a large Desmophyllum dianthus, a scleractinian coral collected by the ROV Hercules from Nashville Seamount on the New England Seamount Chain DASS05_IFE_URI_IAO_NOAA

So - what is the difference between a regular shallow water coral found on the Great Barrier Reef (Australia) and a coral found at 2000m depth on the New England Seamounts (North Atlantic)?

darkness, so is called an azooxanthellate coral, and survives only on food falling through the water column.

4 So - what is the difference between a regular shallow water coral found on the Great Barrier Reef (Australia) and a coral found at 2000m depth on the New England Seamounts (North Atlantic)? Shallow water corals have zooxanthellae, a photosynthesizing algae, that provide much of their energy, whereas a coral living deeper than around 50m (and down to over 6300m), is living in total darkness, so is called an azooxanthellate coral, and survives only on food falling through the water column. These zooxanthellate shallow water corals live in tropical waters from around o C whereas cold-water corals can be found in anything between -1 o C (such as in Antarctica and the Arctic) to 25 o C (such as shallower reefs in the tropics) and all over the globe. off a rock or in the sediment - though there are exceptions to both of these instances. The majority of deep-water corals are found between m depth. Why do corals like seamounts? Seamounts are large mountains, sticking out from the abyss, so are often associated with high currents and hard substrates. The majority of deep-water corals need a hard surface to attach to when they are larvae. Some corals then outgrow their attachment point, break off and then live sitting in the sediment, whereas others are firmly attached for their entire lifecycle. These corals need the high currents to catch food in the water column the more water that goes past, the more plankton and detrital material also goes past for them to catch in their tentacles and eat as well as removing waste products from around them. Rhian Waller (WHOI) and Les Watling (University of Maine) examine a colony of Lophelia pertusa collected by the ROV Hercules. DASS05_IFE_URI_IAO_NOAA Shallow species tend to be large reef building species, i.e. colonies of many individuals all joined together; whereas the deeper species tend to be solitary species, just a single individual, growing Enallopsammia rostrata on Yakutat Seamount in the Corner Rise, NE Atlantic. DASS05_IFE_URI_IAO_NOAA

Why are cold-water corals important? Though not as obvious to most people as the beautiful reefs off Australia, Florida or the Philippines, cold-water corals are important and also under threat.

other fauna, or even just hiding from larger predators.

5 Why are cold-water corals important? Though not as obvious to most people as the beautiful reefs off Australia, Florida or the Philippines, cold-water corals are important and also under threat. These corals have been shown to support well over 1000 different species of associated fauna whether it is for reproducing or protecting their young around the corals, feeding on crustaceans and other fauna, or even just hiding from larger predators. Many commercially important species have been found around these corals like the Orange Roughy (see Creature Feature, Newsletter #2) and the corals may be trawled through to get at the fishes. This has left some deep-coral reefs in a bad state, with trawl scars and broken nets obvious on the seafloor. Some areas are even thought to be unrecoverable. The ROV Hercules collects a deep-water bamboo coral from the Corner Rise Seamounts, NE Atlantic. DASS05_IFE_URI_IAO_NOAA DAWG goes to the UN The CenSeam Data Analysis Working group report Seamounts, Deep-sea corals and Fisheries: vulnerability of deep-sea corals to fishing on seamounts beyond areas of national jurisdiction is currently in press. The Executive Summary was distributed in New York on 4-5 October to the negotiators involved in the first round of the UN General Assembly's fisheries resolution negotiations. The summary was also received by a number of journalists attending a press conference on deep-sea fisheries on the 2 nd of October. Speakers at the press conference included the Ambassadors to the UN from Australia, New Zealand and Palau, actress Sigourney Weaver, Ellen Pickitch of the Pew Oceans Institute and Lisa Speer of the US based NGO NRDC.

Education and Outreach CenSeam goes to school In May the New Zealand research vessel Tangaroa visited the Graveyard seamount complex.

School children from Miramar Central School in Wellington, New Zealand were regular visitors and in October PhD student Michelle Carter (below) and CenSeam coordinator Mireille Consalvey visited the

Many thanks to Andrew Stewart (Te Papa Museum) and Amelia Connell and Kareen Schnabel (NIWA, New Zealand) who provided specimens for this visit.

6 Education and Outreach CenSeam goes to school In May the New Zealand research vessel Tangaroa visited the Graveyard seamount complex. The voyage was followed by scientists and the public through the CenSeam website. School children from Miramar Central School in Wellington, New Zealand were regular visitors and in October PhD student Michelle Carter (below) and CenSeam coordinator Mireille Consalvey visited the school to talk more about the voyage. The children get to look at some of the weird and wonderful creatures that have been collected from seamounts. Many thanks to Andrew Stewart (Te Papa Museum) and Amelia Connell and Kareen Schnabel (NIWA, New Zealand) who provided specimens for this visit. Seamount Conferences/Meetings DAWG goes to San Francisco They talked to the children about life aboard a research vessel, and how we sample seamounts. The children were able to see some of the weird and wonderful creatures that have been found on seamounts - learning about creatures ranging from the elusive giant squid to a new species of carnivorous sponge. The visit gave the children the opportunity to ask the scientists questions first hand. - But no, we couldn't answer one question "Is the Loch Ness Monster real?" CenSeam s Data Analysis Working Group (DAWG) will be meeting in San Francisco just prior to the fall AGU (American Geophysical Union) meeting. The DAWG is currently addressing the difficulties inherent in finding regional faunal datasets for seamounts that can be combined to undertake a robust multi-taxa analysis. This meeting will focus on datasets from the South Pacific region and work is ongoing in compiling these data sets.

GeoHab 2007 First call GeoHab 2007 is an international conference hosted by the Government of New Caledonia, in conjunction with The Circum Pacific Council and the South Pacific Applied Geoscience

The conference will address advancement in the knowledge, mapping, and resource management of the world's oceans.

7 GeoHab 2007 First call GeoHab 2007 is an international conference hosted by the Government of New Caledonia, in conjunction with The Circum Pacific Council and the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission from 2-6 May It will be held at the Institute for Research & Development (IRD) Noumea, New Caledonia as part of the GeoHab Annual Meeting. The conference will address advancement in the knowledge, mapping, and resource management of the world's oceans. The intent of the forum is to share the latest scientific and technical information about the seafloor, and associated communities, with a particular emphasis on the Pacific Ocean region; and to review progress in the areas of mapping/modeling and management since the first Marine Benthic Habitat Mapping conference Noumea in In the past ten years tremendous advancements have been made in seafloor mapping technologies, methodologies, and information presentation to support a wide range of management applications. This conference will bring together participants from a growing field of scientific experts, managers, economists, and policy makers involved in living, and non-living, resources appraisal and management. The deadline for submission of abstracts is January 31st 2007, to be sent to Vaughn Berrie (GEOHAB@nrcan.gc.ca). Please direct any enquiries to Yves LaFoy (yves.lafoy@gouv.nc) or Mary Power (Mary@sopac.org) including 'GeoHab' in the subject field. Announcements New book Biogeography of the North Atlantic Seamounts The book "Biogeography of the North Atlantic Seamounts" (edited by A. Mironov, A.Gebruk & A.Southward.) is now available. It can be purchased for US$40 or 30 Euros. If you would like to purchase a copy please contact Tina N. Molodtsova (tina@ocean.ru). Furthermore, Tina will be at the Fall AGU meeting so may be able to bring your copy there (depending on demand, it s a hard back!).

The book includes 11 Chapters (all in English with a Russian summary): Mironov A.N., Gebruk A.V. Biogeography of the Reykjanes Ridge, the northern Atlantic Mironov A.N., Krylova E.M. Origin of the fauna of the Meteor Seamounts, north- eastern Atlantic Sokolova M.

M. Bivalves of seamounts of the north-eastern Atlantic. part 1 Mironov A.N. Echinoids from seamounts of the north-eastern Atlantic; onshore/offshore gradients in species distribution Turpaeva E.P.

P.,Zevina G.B. Barnacles (Cirripedia, Toracica) of the north-eastern Atlantic Dilman A.B. Asteroid fauna of the Reykjanes Ridge And finally.

Tony leaves us as he takes up a new position as a research professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (University of California, San Diego) and Director of CalCOFI.

8 The book includes 11 Chapters (all in English with a Russian summary): Mironov A.N., Gebruk A.V. Biogeography of the Reykjanes Ridge, the northern Atlantic Mironov A.N., Krylova E.M. Origin of the fauna of the Meteor Seamounts, north- eastern Atlantic Sokolova M.N. On the food of regular sea-urchins on seamounts and shelves of the north-eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Zezina O.N. Deep-sea brachiopods in Russian collections from the Atlantic Ocean Krylova E.M. Bivalves of seamounts of the north-eastern Atlantic. part 1 Mironov A.N. Echinoids from seamounts of the north-eastern Atlantic; onshore/offshore gradients in species distribution Turpaeva E.P. Pycnogonida of Reykjanes Ridge Molodtsova T.N. Black corals (Antipatharia:Anthozoa:Cnidaria) of the north-eastern Atlantic Poltorukha O.P.,Zevina G.B. Barnacles (Cirripedia, Toracica) of the Reykjanes Ridge Poltorukha O.P.,Zevina G.B. Barnacles (Cirripedia, Toracica) of the north-eastern Atlantic Dilman A.B. Asteroid fauna of the Reykjanes Ridge And finally.a Farewell to Tony Koslow Having been involved with CenSeam since the start Tony Koslow is now giving up his position on the CenSeam Steering Committee and Data Analysis Working Group. Tony leaves us as he takes up a new position as a research professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (University of California, San Diego) and Director of CalCOFI. CalCOFI is an ocean observation program that dates back to 1950s and the collapse of the Pacific sardine fishery. The focus of his research will be on ocean climate in the North Pacific, and its influence on marine populations. He will be leaving Australia s CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) Marine & Atmospheric Research. CenSeam wishes him every success in his new appointment. If you would like to t learn more about CenSeam please visit our website ( ) or contact project coordinator Mireille Consalvey (m.consalvey@niwa.co.nz m.consalvey@niwa.co.nz).

CenSeam developing a global baseline and synthesis of seamount biodiversity data. Malcolm Clark, Ash Rowden, Karen Stocks, Mireille Consalvey

CenSeam developing a global baseline and synthesis of seamount biodiversity data Malcolm Clark, Ash Rowden, Karen Stocks, Mireille Consalvey This afternoon General introduction to seamounts and the CenSeam