NOAA Okeanos Explorer
Info
Polymyces wellsi is an azooxanthellate stony coral that mainly settles at great depths on boulder beds.
The first specimens of this species were landed using trawl nets, nowadays these animals are observed and collected using ROVs.
Polymyces wellsi is a reef-building stony coral that is tough, as the tropical Western Pacific in particular has a relatively low oxygen content, an unfavorably low pH value and an extreme shortage of food, all factors that can potentially stress the coral.
The pH value of the oceans and thus the acidification of the oceans has decreased by 0.07 points in the last 40 years since 1982 and the content of the carbonate aragonite, which is important for marine animals such as corals, snails and mussels, has decreased by ten percent.
The deeper the sea, the more the pH value decreases; it only remains relatively constant from a depth of around 3,000 meters.
If we understand how deep-sea corals survive under these difficult conditions, in particular how calcification takes place at depths close to the aragonite saturation horizon, we can assume that these stony corals are developing a strategy for coping with global climate change.
Etymology:
The species name "wellsi" was given in honor of John W. Wells, author of numerous papers on the taxonomy of scleractinians, including a revision of the Galapagan fauna (Wells, 1983).
The first specimens of this species were landed using trawl nets, nowadays these animals are observed and collected using ROVs.
Polymyces wellsi is a reef-building stony coral that is tough, as the tropical Western Pacific in particular has a relatively low oxygen content, an unfavorably low pH value and an extreme shortage of food, all factors that can potentially stress the coral.
The pH value of the oceans and thus the acidification of the oceans has decreased by 0.07 points in the last 40 years since 1982 and the content of the carbonate aragonite, which is important for marine animals such as corals, snails and mussels, has decreased by ten percent.
The deeper the sea, the more the pH value decreases; it only remains relatively constant from a depth of around 3,000 meters.
If we understand how deep-sea corals survive under these difficult conditions, in particular how calcification takes place at depths close to the aragonite saturation horizon, we can assume that these stony corals are developing a strategy for coping with global climate change.
Etymology:
The species name "wellsi" was given in honor of John W. Wells, author of numerous papers on the taxonomy of scleractinians, including a revision of the Galapagan fauna (Wells, 1983).
