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Environmental Management

Exploring the Mediterranean’s biodiversity

The website Recerca en Accio has recently launched a new project focused on the study of white coral reefs that grow between 50 and 1,000 meters deep in the Mediterranean. A group of oceanographers are investigating the ecology of these communities in locations such as the Canal of Menorca or the submarine canyon off Cap de Creus, on the Catalan coast. The information collected can be used to include these marine areas in the Natura 2000 network.

STAFF | SEPTEMBER 20TH, 2010

Over the coming weeks, the research team led by Josep Maria Gili, of the ICM and Spain’s National Research Council, will be detailing their work on Recerca en Acció, which will also offer underwater images taken by robots.

The first message of the scientists, entitled La ciència versus la flota pesquera: el cas dels coralls (Science versus the fishing fleet: the case of coral reefs), stated that "The depths of the Mediterranean are the silent setting of a race against time between scientists and the commercial fishing. While the first work to learn the ecological role and conservation status of coral reefs, the latter continue to fish and destroy them.”

The Natura 2000 network has the goal of preserving natural areas which are rich in biodiversity. In fact, white or cold corals in the Mediterranean live in open waters, between 50 and 1,000 meters deep and generally between 4 º and 12 º C. They are banks that may form masses of more than 300 meters, several kilometers in diameter, over several thousand years. Their structure provides shelter for larvae and the young offspring of many commercial fish species, hence their ecological importance.

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