Building your own mountain: the effects, limits, and drawbacks of cold-water coral ecosystem engineering

van der Kaaden, Anna-Selma; Maier, Sandra R.; Chen, Siluo; De Clippele, Laurence H.; de Froe, Evert; Gerkema, Theo; van de Koppel, Johan; Mienis, Furu; Mohn, Christian; Rietkerk, Max; Soetaert, Karline; van Oevelen, Dick

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-973-2024

Articles | Volume 21, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-973-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-973-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 4

Research article

|

22 Feb 2024

Research article |

| 22 Feb 2024

Building your own mountain: the effects, limits, and drawbacks of cold-water coral ecosystem engineering

Anna-Selma van der Kaaden, Sandra R. Maier, Siluo Chen, Laurence H. De Clippele, Evert de Froe, Theo Gerkema, Johan van de Koppel, Furu Mienis, Christian Mohn, Max Rietkerk, Karline Soetaert, and Dick van Oevelen

Data sets

Raw data for "Reef communities associated with 'dead' cold-water coral framework drive high resource retention and fast recycling in the deep sea" Sandra R. Maier https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4076147

Environmental data and image area measurements of different substrate types extracted from video transects recorded in the Logachev cold-water coral mound province L. H. De Clippele https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.959612

Short summary

Combining hydrodynamic simulations and annotated videos, we separated which hydrodynamic variables that determine reef cover are engineered by cold-water corals and which are not. Around coral mounds, hydrodynamic zones seem to create a typical reef zonation, restricting corals from moving deeper (the expected response to climate warming). But non-engineered downward velocities in winter (e.g. deep winter mixing) seem more important for coral reef growth than coral engineering.