Seamount Corals Survey 2018 Episode 3: Life in the Matrix

This is the third episode in a series of five videos from the Seamount Corals Survey 2018, a month long voyage on CSIRO's Investigator to map and survey deep-sea coral reefs across an area of underwater seamounts south of Tasmania.
The voyage criss-crossed many seamounts in and near the Huon and Tasman Fracture marine parks, which are home to both pristine and previously fished coral reefs. These two parks are part of a larger network of Australian Marine Parks that surround Australia’s coastline and protect our offshore marine environment.
Many of the animals that live in the deeper areas of marine parks are unknown to science, or can't be identified from underwater video. To better understand the make-up of the seafloor communities, physical samples are collected using a small trawl net.
Biologists sort, label, photograph and preserve the specimens in the ship's wet lab. For several of the museum taxonomists onboard, this was their first contact with coral and mollusc species they had known, and even named, only from preserved specimens.
As well as the main reef-building stony coral Solenosmilia variabilis, this voyage collected hundreds of other animals including feathery solitary soft corals, tulip-shaped glass sponges and crinoids. Their colours ranged from delicate creams and pinks to striking purples, bright yellows and golds.
We found a raft of undescribed species, as expected in such remote environments. In many cases this is likely to be the only time these species are ever collected. We also found animals living among the corals, hinting at their complex interdependencies. This included brittlestars curled around corals, polychaete worms tunnelling inside corals, and corals growing on shells.
The specimens are housed in collections around Australia for further investigation.
Read more about the voyage in The Conversation: theconversatio...
Read the daily voyage blog: www.nespmarine...