Effectiveness of a coral conservation area in the Gulf of Maine: distribution along the boundaries and changes in abundance of two deep-water octocoral species over 13 years

No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author.

To protect deep-water coral aggregations from destructive fishing, the Northeast Channel Coral Conservation Area was established as a Fisheries Closure by the Canadian Government in the Gulf of Maine in 2002. In this study, communities of the octocoral species Primnoa resedaeformis and Paragorgia arborea were monitored inside the conservation area at depths of 400 – 700 m using video from ROV dives to determine the effectiveness of the conservation measures between 2001 and 2014. Coral abundance remained approximately stable at one location and increased at two sites. Size frequency distributions were variable for the two species among locations and sampling years. Small colonies (< 20 cm) indicative of successful recruitment were not found at all sites. In additional dives at deeper parts and outside the conservation area at 685 – 1521 m depth different coral taxa were dominant than in shallower parts. The lack of recruits suggests a limited ability to sustain coral communities at some of the sampling locations over the observed time period. This study provides the first data points for long-term monitoring of population dynamics in protected octocoral communities.