Mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) and temperate mesophotic ecosystems (TMEs) occur at depths of roughly 30-150 m depth and are characterized by the presence of photosynthetic organisms despite reduced light availability. Exploration of these ecosystems dates back several decades, but our knowledge remained extremely limited until about a decade ago, when a renewed interest resulted in the establishment of a rapidly growing research community. Here, we present the 'mesophotic.org' database, a comprehensive and curated repository of scientific literature on mesophotic ecosystems. Through both manually curated and automatically extracted metadata, the repository facilitates rapid retrieval of available information about particular topics (e.g. taxa or geographic regions), exploration of spatial/temporal trends in research and identification of knowledge gaps. The repository can be queried to comprehensively obtain available data to address large-scale questions and guide future research directions. Overall, the 'mesophotic.org' repository provides an independent and open-source platform for the ever-growing research community working on MCEs and TMEs to collate and expedite our understanding of the occurrence, composition and functioning of these ecosystems. Database URL: http://mesophotic.org/.

Depth range
30- 150 m

Mesophotic “mentions”
48 x (total of 1778 words)

Classification
* Focused on 'mesophotic' depth range
* Focused on 'mesophotic coral ecosystem'
* Focused on 'temperate mesophotic ecosystem'

Fields
Acoustics
Behavior
Biodiversity
Biomedicine
Climate Change
Community structure
Connectivity
Disturbances
Ecology
Evolution
Fisheries
Geomorphology
Long-term monitoring
Management and Conservation
Methods and Technology
Molecular ecology
Oceanography
Paleoecology
Physiology
Reproduction
Taxonomy
Vision

Focusgroups
Actiniaria and Ceriantharia (Sea anemones)
Algae (Macro, Turf and Crustose Coralline)
Antipatharia (Black Corals)
Bacteria and Archaea
Marine mammals
Crustacea
Fishes
Hydrozoa
Octocorallia (Soft Corals)
Other endosymbionts (non-Symbiodinium)
Other invertebrates
Overall benthic (groups)
Plankton
Porifera (Sponges)
Scleractinia (Hard Corals)
Seagrass
Symbiodinium (zooxanthellae)
Viruses
Zoantharia (Zoanthids)

Platforms
Acoustic Telemetry
Aquarium-based
Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV)
Baited Remote Underwater Video (BRUV)
Coring / drilling
Dredging / trawling
Drop / Towed Video
Fishing
In-situ instrumentation
Land-based
Manned Submersible
Rebreather
Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV)
SCUBA (open-circuit or unspecified)
Snorkeling
Sonar / Multibeam
Surface-deployed sensors and samplers