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Over a 3-year period, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) organized and implemented a Pacific-wide field campaign entitled CAPSTONE: Campaign to Address Pacific monument Science, Technology, and Ocean NEeds. Under the auspices of CAPSTONE, NOAA mapped 597,230 km2 of the Pacific seafloor (with ∼61% of mapped area located within US waters), including 323 seamounts, conducted 187 ROV dives totaling 891.5 h of ROV benthic imaging time, and documented >347,000 individual organisms. This comprehensive effort yielded dramatic insight into differences in biodiversity across depths, regions, and features, at multiple taxonomic scales.

2019
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Published research, Journal article, Fully or partially Program-funded
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U.S. Pacific Islands
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Anthozoa, Porifera

Here, we present (1) the first observation of an extensive exposure of an undeformed Cretaceous seamount currently being subducted at the Mariana Trench inner slope;(2) vertical deformation of the forearc region related to subduction of Pacific Plate seamounts and thickened crust; (3) recovered Ocean Drilling Program and International Ocean Discovery Program cores of serpentinite mudflows that confirm exhumation of various Pacific Plate lithologies, including subducted reef limestone; (4) petrologic, geochemical and paleontological data from the cores that show that Pacific Plate seamount exhumation covers greater spatial and temporal extents; (5) the inference that microbial communities associated with serpentinite mud volcanism may also be exhumed from the subducted plate seafloor and/or seamounts; and (6) the implications for effects of these processes with regard to evolution of life.

2019
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Published research, Journal article
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U.S. Pacific Islands
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A review of taxonomic and ecological studies for shallow and mesophotic antipatharians is presented for four regionally based case studies, three in the tropics (1) Central Indo-Pacific, plus adjacent sections of the Western Indo-Pacific, (2) Eastern Indo-Pacific (primarily Hawaiʻi), and (3) the Caribbean Sea) and one at temperate latitudes in the Mediterranean Sea and adjacent sections of the Northeast Atlantic. 

2019
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Published research, Book chapter
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U.S. Pacific Islands, Southeast (South Atlantic/Gulf of Mexico/U.S. Caribbean)
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Antipathidae, Aphanipathidae, Myriopathidae

This full-day session of the ASLO 2019 Aquatic Sciences Meeting served as a forum to highlight recent advances in the understanding of deep-sea ecosystems in the western North Atlantic region encompassed by the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico (GoM), and U.S. Southeast Atlantic.

2019
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Published research
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Southeast (South Atlantic/Gulf of Mexico/U.S. Caribbean)
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Using the North Atlantic deep sea as a case study, we propose a database structure to facilitate standardisation of morphospecies image catalogues between research groups and support future use in multiple front-end applications. We also propose a framework for coordination of international efforts to develop reference guides for the identification of marine species from images.

2019
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Published research, Journal article, Fully or partially Program-funded
,
Southeast (South Atlantic/Gulf of Mexico/U.S. Caribbean)
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The stable isotope geochemistry of gorgonian octocoral skeletons facilitates detailed time series reconstructions of nutrient biogeochemistry. However, comparisons among reconstructions from different locations require realistic estimates of the uncertainty surrounding each measured geochemical value. Here, we determine quantitative uncertainties related to 1) standard skeletal pretreatment in preparation for stable isotopic analysis and 2) biological variability associated with a heterogeneous isotopic composition of the gorgonin skeleton.

2019
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Published research, Journal article, Fully or partially Program-funded
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Alaska
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Holaxonia, Calcaxonia

Red tree coral (Primnoa pacifica), a keystone species forms large thickets, creating habitat for many associated species, including economically valuable fishes and crabs, and so are important benthic suspension feeders in this region. Though the reproductive periodicity of this species was reported in 2014 from a shallow fjord (Tracy Arm), this study examined reproductive ecologies from 8 sites – two within Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, three on the continental shelf edge, one within Endicott Arm (Holkham Bay) and two time points from the Tracy Arm (Holkham Bay) study. 

2019
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Published research, Journal article, Fully or partially Program-funded
,
Alaska
,
Primnoa pacifica, Primnoidae

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A total of 493 sponges were collected with a bottom trawl during annual groundfish stock assessment surveys in the eastern Bering Sea in 2013, 2015, and 2016 to build an inventory of species in this largely unexplored region. We report here principally on the demosponge fauna collected during those surveys because identifications of hexactinellids are incomplete. We identified 42 unique demosponge taxa from the collection including geographical range extensions for 30 species; seven are new records for the Pacific Ocean.

2019
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Published research, Journal article
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Alaska
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Demospongiae, Poecilosclerida, Microcionidae

We compared the use of deep-sea corals and sponges by fish species in two ecosystems. Rockfishes (Sebastes spp.) and Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) densities were significantly correlated to structured seafloors at the scale of transects across both regions. The implication of this research is that the presence of structure increases the density of rockfishes, and removal of deep-sea corals and sponges is likely to reduce the overall density of rockfishes.

2019
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Published research, Journal article, Fully or partially Program-funded
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Alaska
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Research is needed to determine the seasonal importance of high-relief habitats, particularly those containing biotic structures to rockfishes within the Gulf of Alaska. We examined the density and community structure of commercially important rockfishes in low-relief, high-relief, and biotic habitats in the spring, summer, and winter seasons at three sites in the central Gulf of Alaska using stereo drop cameras and bottom trawls.

2019
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Published research, Journal article, Fully or partially Program-funded
,
Alaska
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