The NOAA Deep-Sea Coral Data Portal leads the way to the treasures of deep-sea corals and sponges. NOAA established the Deep Sea Coral Research and Technology Program (DSCRTP) to increase scientific understanding of deep-sea coral ecosystems. The DSCRTP collects and manages deep-sea coral and sponge occurrence observations and makes them available to the scientific and resource management communities. The DSCRTP created the Deep-Sea Coral Data Portal to provide access to DSCRTP regional initiatives and publications.
The portal is also home to the National Coral & Sponge Database. NCEI worked closely with DSCRTP and partners at NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science to create this national geographic database that can be accessed through an interactive map which has been updated with improved performance and new capabilities.
Redesigned Functionality
The newest version of the NOAA Deep-Sea Coral & Sponge Map Portal is a complete redesign that leverages the NOAA GeoPlatform, allowing for custom web maps and spatial analysis. The more modern interface provides users with improved search and filtering capabilities that better enable data exploration and interpretation. For example, users can search by taxon, region, time, and depth.
The National Deep-Sea Coral and Sponge Database contains over one million records from more than 85 partner data providers and is updated quarterly. Users can also access almost 200,000 images of corals and sponges. The entire database can be downloaded with one click!
Treasures of the Deep
Deep-sea corals, like their shallow-water cousins, are animals composed of a single polyp (solitary corals) or colony of polyps (colonial corals) that live attached to the seafloor. Since they are sessile creatures, they use tentacles on their polyp(s) to trap plankton and other particles from the surrounding water to feed. Unlike tropical corals, they live from 150 feet to more than 10,000 feet below sea level, where sunlight is dim to nonexistent. They come in many colors—purple, red, gold, pink, orange—and a variety of shapes. Deep-sea corals are found worldwide, and scientists have identified over 3,000 different species so far. The full geographic extent of deep-sea corals is far from known. While 26.1% of the global seafloor has been mapped, according to the Seabed 2030 Initiative, only a tiny percentage of that has been explored visually (with a remotely operated vehicle, for example).
Deep-sea corals are more than just beautiful. They provide vital habitats for numerous invertebrates (such as sea stars, crabs, lobsters, urchins, octopuses, squids, and more) and fish species, including important commercial fish like bass, groupers, snappers, and jacks. They are also home to organisms that produce chemicals with great potential for biomedical uses.
Like deep-sea corals, deep-sea sponges come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. They also provide habitats for invertebrates and fish. Some sponges even form symbiotic relationships with other species. The Venus flower basket glass sponge often houses two small, shrimp-like Stenopodidea, a male and a female, who live out their lives inside the sponge. The sponge provides food and shelter for the shrimp, and the shrimp keep their glass house clean in return.
Providing access to deep-sea coral and sponge data is important to scientists and decision-makers alike. For example, the eight U.S. regional Fishery Management Councils use this information to help identify Habitat Areas of Particular Concern—areas that provide important ecological functions and/or are especially vulnerable to degradation—as well as other designations and regulations. Once damaged, corals and their communities may take decades to centuries to recover, if they recover at all.
Each new discovery about deep-sea coral and sponge habitats reveals valuable information. Teamwork is necessary for complicated open ocean exploration, and deep-sea work is expensive. NOAA partners guide deep-sea explorations that map the seafloor and discover new life-forms and habitats. Learn more about the partnerships that make the NOAA Deep-Sea Coral & Sponge Map Portal possible.
