Gulf Deep-Sea Coral Richness (Southeast Blueprint Indicator)

Reason for Selection Many deep-sea corals form tree-like shapes and complex reefs that provide valuable three-dimensional habitat structure for many fish and invertebrate species. They support commercially important fisheries such as grouper, snapper, sea bass, rockfish, shrimp, and crab. The presence of more diverse types of coral typically creates more complex habitats that support more species. Because most deep-sea corals grow very slowly, they are highly vulnerable to damage from trawling and energy development, as well as ocean acidification due to climate change (NOAA 2018). Input Data * [Southeast Blueprint 2023 subregions]: Marine (combined Atlantic & Gulf of America) * [Southeast Blueprint 2023 extent] * National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) [Characterizing Spatial Distributions of Deep-sea Corals and Chemosynthetic Communities in the U.S. Gulf of ]America;[read the final report]; data shared prior to official release on 2-1-2023 by Matt Poti with the NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science ([matthew.poti@noaa.gov]). This dataset provides probability models for 28 deep-sea coral genera (Acanella, Antipathes, Bathypathes, Bebryce, Caliacis, Callogorgia, Cheliodonisis, Enallopsammia, Hypnogorgia, Keratoisis, Leiopathes, Lepidisis, Lophelia, Madracis, Madrepora, Nicella, Oculina, Paramuricea, Placogorgia, Plumapathes, Scleracis, Solenosmilia, Stauropathes, Stichopathes, Swiftia, Tanacetipathes, Thesea, Villogorgia), as well as a combined genus richness layer that counts the average number of unique genera predicted to occur in each 100 m pixel. Dr. Poti provided a summarized vector version of the continuous genus richness raster layer that mirrors the way the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement displays these data. This classification is based on natural breaks in the data distribution and used 10 bins. We further collapsed the bins from 10 to 5 for simplicity. Mapping Steps * Reclassify to collapse the 10 classes in the provided genus richness shapefiles into 5by combining the “0-0.5” and “0.5-1” classes and assigning a value of 1, combining the “1-2” and “2-3” classes and assigning a value of 2, combining the “3-4” and “4-5” classes and assigning a value of 3, combining the “5-6” and “6-7” classes and assigning a value of 4, and combining the “7-8” and “>8” classes and assigning a value of 5. * Convert the provided genus richness shapefile from vector to raster. * Clip to the Southeast Blueprint 2023 marine subregion. * As a final step, clip to the spatial extent of Southeast Blueprint 2023. Note: For more details on the mapping steps, code used to create this layer is available in the[Southeast Blueprint Data Download]under > 6_Code. Final indicator values Indicator values are assigned as follows: 5 = Highest predicted average genus richness (>7) 4 = High predicted average genus richness (>5-7) 3 = Medium predicted average genus richness (>3-5) 2 = Low predicted average genus richness (>1-3) 1 = Lowest predicted average genus richness (0-1) Known Issues * While this layer has a 30 m resolution, the NOAA deep-sea coral models were coarser than that. We downsampled 100 m pixels to 30 m. * Areas with low survey effort for the variables used to predict deep-sea corals are underprioritized. This is especially true for seafloor geology, curvature, and aspect. Sharp linear features and shapes in this indicator, when not aligned with a shelf break, are a symptom of places with low survey effort for these variables. Other Things to Keep in Mind * Atlantic and Gulf deep-sea coral richness are intended to serve as complementary indicators based on similar NOAA source data. Because of the different deep-sea coral communities present in the Atlantic and the Gulf, the data provider recommended different thresholds for what level of genus richness qualifies as highest, high, medium, etc. to ensure the Blueprint captures the most important deep-sea coral areas within each region. Disclaimer: Comparing with Older Indicator Versions There are numerous problems with using Southeast Blueprint indicators for change analysis. Please consult Blueprint staff if you would like to do this (email [hilary_morris@fws.gov]). Literature Cited Goyert HF, Bassett R, Christensen J, Coleman, H, Coyne M, Etnoyer PJ, Frometa J, Hourigan, TF, Poti M, Salgado EJ, Williams, B, Winship AJ. 2020. Characterizing spatial distributions of deep-sea corals and chemosynthetic communities in the US Gulf of Mexico through data synthesis and predictive modeling. New Orleans (LA): US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. OCS Study BOEM 2021-027. 317 p. [[https://espis.boem.gov/final%20reports/BOEM_2021-027.pdf]]. Komyakova V, Jones GP, Munday PL. Strong effects of coral species on the diversity and structure of reef fish communities: A multi-scale analysis. PLoS One. 2018 Aug 13;13(8):e0202206. [[https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202206]]. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Deep Sea Coral Research and Technology Program 2018 Report to Congress. December 2018. [[https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/oceans/coris/library/NOAA/DSCRTP/Other/Reports_To_Congress/2018/DSCRTP2018_Report_to_Congress.pdf]].