By collaborating with a Spanish university, a team of Scottish scientists has discovered a new family and species of deep-sea soft coral off the western coast of Scotland that has been previously unknown to science. The exciting find happened at a depths of around 2,000 metres in the Rockall Trough, an elongated deep-water bathymetric depression found in the North Atlantic Ocean that is approximately 200 kilometres wide and over 2,000 metres deep.
The new species was collected by MRV Scotia, a research vessel that has conducted survey work in the deep waters off West Scotland since the 1990s. When the species was collected, it was initially thought to be part of a family of seapens known as Umbellula. But after the specimen was studied by coral expert Dr Pablo Lopez-Gonzalez from the University of Seville, it was established that the species is, in fact, entirely new to science.
The species believed to found on deep-sea plains and slopes was called Pseudumbellula. While it looks similar to Umbellula physically, it consists of a cluster of feeding polyps that sit on the tip of a slender 50 to 70 cm stem that sits in deep-sea mud with its muscular bulbous base.
“This is an important and exciting discovery made by combining traditional and modern scientific techniques and I would like to congratulate the teams involved. This work suggests that sub-sea biodiversity is far more diverse than previously believed and demonstrates that international co-operation is vital to increasing our understanding of the natural world,” said Scottish environment and land reform minister Mairi McAllan.
The new finding suggests that there is still a lot to learn about and discover in the deep-sea habitats around Scotland, while it highlights the importance of expanding Marine Protected Areas to help foster conservation of these vital ecosystems.
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Photography courtesy of Unsplash & ScotGov.
