Oceanography The Official Magazine of
The Oceanography Society
Volume 23 Issue 01

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Volume 23, No. 1
Pages 128 - 129

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BOX • Deep-Sea Corals on Seamounts

By Peter J. Etnoyer  
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First Paragraph

Deep-sea corals are solitary and colonial suspension-feeding cnidarians commonly associated with seamounts around the world. They are important components of seamount ecology, providing food and refuge for numerous associated species of fish, crabs, shrimp, and sea stars at depths where few other habitat formers live (50–6000 m). Deep-sea corals are a rich assemblage in their own right, a paraphyletic taxonomic group (derived from several ancestors) of more than 3300 species of azooxanthellate stony corals (Figure 1; Scleractinia) and soft corals (Figure 2; Octocorallia) (Cairns, 2007).

Citation

Etnoyer, P.J. 2010. Box 7: Deep-sea corals on seamounts. Oceanography 23(1):128–129, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2010.91.

References

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Etnoyer, P.J. 2008. A new species of Isidella bamboo coral (Octocorallia: Alcyonacea: Isididae) from Northeast Pacific seamounts. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 121(4):541–553. 

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