Assessing undiscovered fish biodiversity on deep coral reefs using advanced self-contained diving technology

By R. Pyle. 2000

101 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Due primarily to limitations of existing technology, deep (60-150 m) coral reefs have remained largely unexplored. In 1989 I began developing the use of mixed-gas SCUBA and other technical' diving techniques as a tool for ichthyological investigation of coral reefs at depths of 60-150 m, and have since conducted initial exploratory expeditions to the Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea, and the Palau Islands. These expeditions yielded over 200 fish specimens, comprising more than 100 species representing 20 different families. Among these are more than fifty new species, three-quarters of which belong to the families Labridae, Gobiidae, and Serranidae, and the rest are among 9 other families. The number of new species within each family parallels that of the overall deep-reef species assemblage, except for Apogonidae with a total of 7 collected species, none of which were new. Analysis of specimens and videotape surveys of the ichthyofauna at one 90-m site in Palau suggests that as many as 70% of the species inhabiting this depth are undescribed. New species assemblages on deep reefs show comparatively low distributional overlap (both between different island groups, and between sites within each island group), suggesting higher rates of geographic endemism than for shallow-reef assemblages. Based on these and other observed patterns, conservative extrapolations suggest as many as 2,000 or more coral-reef fish species await discovery on deep coral reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/463cf30ef9e6fe2d988ab130e92be6dc44b06c92

How researchers see this paper

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In Ecology

1. J. Gili
2. Sergio Rossi
3. Joshua M. Copus
4. T. Langlois
5. D. Watson
6. G. Shedrawi
7. B. Fitzpatrick
8. Euan Harvey

In Global and Planetary Change

1. J. Gili
2. Sergio Rossi
3. T. Langlois
4. G. Shedrawi
5. D. Watson
6. Euan Harvey
7. B. Fitzpatrick
8. Michael N. Dawson

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

1. D. Watson
2. T. Langlois
3. G. Shedrawi
4. Euan Harvey
5. B. Fitzpatrick
6. J. Meeuwig
7. Joshua M. Copus
8. D. Wagner

Citations in the corpus

• Descending to the twilight-zone: changes in coral reef fish assemblages along a depth gradient down to 65 m (2008, background): “Pyle (2000) showed that in deep water (>90 m) the latter 2 belong to the most species-rich families.”
• Recent advances in the ecology of mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) (2014, background): “In the lower mesophotic zone (>60 m), levels of depth endemism are moderate for many taxa (20–50%), thus reducing connectivity potential [9,44,47,50,98–100].”
• Red Coral Fishery at the Costa Brava (NW Mediterranean): Case Study of an Overharvested Precious Coral (2007, background): “…distribution limit of 300 m (Carpine and Grasshoff 1975; Rossi and others 2006), but because it is extraordinarily difficult for SCUBA divers to reach these depths (see Pyle 2000), we expected a difference in population structures, as in the case of a comparison with the protected populations.”
• Cost-efficient sampling of fish assemblages: comparison of baited video stations and diver video transects (2010, background): “Recent advances in diving technology have allowed these methods to be used to depths of 150 m, resulting in the description of large numbers of new cryptic species and observations of higher rates of endemism in deeper compared to shallow reefs (Pyle 2000).”
• The magnitude of global marine species diversity. (2012, background): “The advent of scuba diving [31], deep-water tangle nets [32], submersibles, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), and other technologies [22] has allowed sampling of previously unexplored habitats such as cold seeps, mud volcanoes, submarine canyons, and anchialine lakes and caves [33, 34] and of very ”
• Survey of deep-dwelling red coral (Corallium rubrum) populations at Cap de Creus (NW Mediterranean) (2008, background): “Remotely operated vehicles (ROV) allow extensive surveys in a depth range (50–230 m depth in the present study) that is inaccessible to scientiWc SCUBA diving, although investing time and resources into mixed-gas diving systems can extend the SCUBA range to slightly more than 100 m (see Pyle 2000 )”
• Five new species of the damselfish genus Chromis (Perciformes: Labroidei: Pomacentridae) from deep coral reefs in the tropical western Pacific (2008, background): “Five new species of the damselfish genus Chromis2 (Perciformes3: Labroidei4: Pomacentridae5) are described from specimens collected from deep (>60 m) coral-reef habitat in the western Pacific by divers using mixed-gas closed-circuit rebreather gear.”
• Gold coral (Savalia savaglia) and gorgonian forests enhance benthic biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in the mesophotic zone (2009, background): “The recent improvement in the utilisation of mixed-gas in diving activity has allowed the exploration of depth zones from 50 to 120 m including deep coral reef communities (Pyle 2000).”
• Connectivity and stability of mesophotic coral reefs (2011, unknown): “Pyle (2000) observed”
• Ecology of mesophotic coral reefs (2009, background): “However, on Pacific mesophotic coral reefs many fish appear to be endemic to mesophotic depths (Pyle, 2000).”