engleski

Are there any deep sea corals living in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea?

The Adriatic Sea is a very shallow part of the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, along the rims of the South Adriatic Pit flourishing communities of deep sea corals and sponges were found (e.g. in Bari Canyon on its western side). Except for the South Adriatic Pit (depths around 1200 m) and Middle Adriatic Pit (Jabuka/Pomo Pit, depth 275 m) there are only a few locations in the Adriatic where depth exceeds 100 m. The preliminary research in the Jabuka Pit done during ARCO Cruise 2008 on board of r/v Urania (in which TBP participated through personal collaboration with Dr. Marco Taviani from ISMAR – CNR, Bologna) revealed an intriguing existence of subrecent deep sea coral mounds buried under a veneer of mud on depths around 200 m. However, so far no living deep sea corals were found in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea. Our discovery of deep sea carnivorous sponge Asbestopluma hypogea a few years ago in a shallow marine cave in the middle Eastern Adriatic, hundreds of kilometres away from the real deep sea, pointed that there must be some suitable habitats - for at least some of deep sea organisms - along that distance. Up to now deep sea living communities on hard grounds in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea have not been properly researched. It is clear that for such research a wider international scientific and expert collaboration - intra and interdisciplinary - is required as well as development and application of new technologies. Some of these were obtained and preliminary tested in coastal waters of Croatia through our collaboration on the European FP 7 program “Developing the Croatian Underwater Robotics Research Potential” (coordinator Professor Zoran Vukić from University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing). On the poster we will present some of the preliminary work and discus Croatian potential for research and conservation of deep sea habitats and species, especially those on hard grounds in the Croatian part of the Adriatic.

deep-sea living communities; Jabuka/Pomo Pit; South Adriatic Pit; Mediterranean

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