Ecophysiology approaches to assess multiple stressor impacts on cold-water coral ecosystems

The deep ocean is increasingly under threat from multiple human activities, including, fishing, oil and gas exploration, and prospective deep-sea mining. This human exploitation of ocean resources is happening in parallel with climate change in the oceans. Investigating the cumulative impacts of climate and human activities cold-water corals is particularly pressing because of their low resilience to disturbance. Here we provide an overview of the aquaria-based experiments with different coral taxa (scleractinians, octocorals, antipatharians) to understand how the cumulative and potentially synergistic effects of these climate and human-made stressors may lead to loss of biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and the provision of goods and services by deep-sea ecosystems.

Marina Carreiro-Silva ( Institute of Marine Sciences – OKEANOS, University of the Azores)

Marina Carreiro-Silva (PhD, U. Maryland, USA, 2007), is a senior researcher at the OKEANOS Institute, University of the Azores, where she co-leads the Azores Deep Sea Research group (ADSR). Her current research interests focus on the study of the diversity, spatial distribution, and functioning of cold-water coral ecosystems, linking those with their ecophysiological responses to climate change and deep-sea mining under ex-situ experimental conditions. She has also been involved on the development of methodologies and techniques for the restoration of degraded cold-water coral communities.

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