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The Florida International University will be taking over operations of the Aquarius Reef Base. The University of North Carolina Wilmington has been running the Aquarius habitat for more than 20 years, but due to a lack of funding they could no longer support the facility. Aquarius sits in about 18 metres (60 ft) of water about four miles from shore off Key Largo, where it allows scientists to live and work underwater 24 hours a day for one or two week missions.

For more information see: http://aquarius.fiu.edu/news/2013/fiu-to-operate-aquarius-reef-base/

A new publication in the journal Coral Reefs documents mesophotic communities of the coral species Seriatopora hystrix on the island of Okinawa in Japan. This is interesting, because Seriatopora hystrix was reported to have become locally extinct in Okinawa after the mass bleaching events in 1998 and 2001. Frederic Sinniger and colleagues have recently started exploring some of the mesophotic reefs around the island, and found that this species is still present at mesophotic depths.

The article can be accessed on the Springer website.

Tom Bridge and co-authors from James Cook University and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef studies have published a new study in PLoS One in which they modeled the spatial extent of deep-water benthic communities. Their models predict extensive heterotrophic and phototrophic coral communities occurring both along the continental shelf-edge of the Great Barrier Reef and also on submerged reefs inside the lagoon.

The full-text can be accessed on the PLoS One website.

CNN has featured the mesophotic research done as part of the Catlin Seaview Survey on the Great Barrier Reef and in the adjacent Coral Sea, led by mesophotic.org member Pim Bongaerts. In the article they highlight some of the early findings of the “Deep Reef” component of the survey, in which they visit 10 different locations along the length of the 2,300 kilometer-long reef system and outlying atolls. The deep reef survey team has a dive team to perform work in the upper mesophotic zone (<50 m), and uses remotely operated vehicles to reach depths of over 100 meters.

Click here to read the CNN article

NOAA has released a technical memorandum describing a modelling study to predict the presence of mesophotic corals in the Au‘au Channel Region in the Main Hawaiian Islands (MHI). The study was con­ducted by NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) Biogeography Branch in partnership with NOAA’s Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary (HIHWNMS) and the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC).

For more information visit the HWNMS website.

Follow this link to download the memorandum.

Ocean Opportunity, a Rhode Island based not for profit organization, is pleased to announce the continuing success of its ‘Bahama Deep’ initiative, thanks to a recent grant award to Expedition Leader and Rhode Island native, Michael Lombardi. The award from the National Geographic Society/Waitt Grants Program is the second awarded to Lombardi since 2010.

Lombardi, along with colleague Jeff Godfrey (University of Connecticut), recently returned from a successful expedition to the Exumas Bahamas where they successfully deployed an experimental undersea habitat to aid them in exploration of the deep coral reef. This marked the first use of a self-sustained, free of surface support, purpose built habitat for assisting wet divers during decompression following deep scientific dives. Dives were conducted to over 400 feet of depth this past week.

The habitat represented a yearlong development effort between Lombardi’s team and Subsalve Inc., a Rhode Island manufacturer. Lombardi states that “removing divers from the wet and harsh ocean environment during lengthy decompression proved very useful. We found that resting in a semi-dry habitat added comfort alone [in addition to other benefits] which lead us to believe that several hours of decompression can be carried out in this portable structure. This will significantly extend our range in exploratory marine science.”

Numerous images, samples, and specimens have been gathered since 2010, which are being evaluated by project collaborators. A fish collected was recently described as a new species by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History and the City University of New York.

The underwater habitat will continue being developed with modifications throughout this fall and winter in prep for even deeper, and long duration excursions on the deep reef – proposed to exceed 500 feet. This work will take place during 2012 and 2013 while continuing the project funded by National Geographic. This project is supported by the National Geographic Society/Waitt Grants Program, Ocean Opportunity Inc., the University of Connecticut, the Bahamas Marine EcoCentre and numerous corporate and individual supporters.

More information can be found at:

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/10/ocean-space-habitat-a-new-concept-is-born/

www.oceanopportunity.com/BahamaDeep.html

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/michael-lombardi/

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/04/12/journey-into-inner-space-conquering-the-abyss/

Last month, the kickoff meeting was held for all the Principal Investigators (PIs) working on the 5-year $5 million National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) funded Pulley Ridge Project under the direction of Lead PI Dr. Robert Cowen of the University of Miami (UM), Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science (RSMAS). Located in the Gulf of Mexico, Pulley Ridge is a mesophotic (mid-light) coral ecosystem home to important species in commercial and recreational fisheries. With Florida’s reef ecosystem in decline, places like Pulley Ridge may serve as sources of larvae that can help sustain the Florida Keys’ ecosystem and the tourism economy that is dependent on it.

Read more on the RSMAS website.

Last week’s Tuesday edition of the Washington Post featured an article on mesophotic coral ecosystems. The article highlighted some of the work that has been funded by NOAA in Hawaii under the Deep-Coral Reef Ecosystem Studies Program as well as research carried out by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

To visit the Washington Post article.

The NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science’s Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research is initiating a 5-year $5 million project focused on the role that the reefs of Pulley Ridge and the northern Gulf of Mexico may play in replenishment of key fish species and other organisms in the downstream reefs of the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas. With this type of information, resource managers will be able to develop more effective strategies to protect these reefs. Teams will use technical diving, remotely operated vehicles and advanced modeling and visualization tools to investigate the role such reefs may play in the replenishment of downstream and adjacent shallow coral ecosystems.

Read more on the NOAA website.

Every four years the International Society for Reef Studies (ISRS) sanctions a major international scientific conference which provides the latest knowledge and leading edge technologies about coral reefs worldwide. The 12th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS 2012) will be hosted in Cairns (Australia) from 9-13 July 2012. The conference will host a mini-symposium entitled “Ecology of Mesophotic Coral Reefs” chaired by Michael Lesser and Marc Slattery. Anybody involved in mesophotic research is encouraged to submit an abstract related to your research in these understudied but increasingly appreciated coral communities. The idea is to have a significant discussion on the community constituents biogeographic differences in community structure/function ecophysiology & benthic/pelagic coupling and the big management implications of these systems (i.e. connectivity to shallow reefs and deep reef stability).