Spatio-temporal distribution patterns of Mediterranean cold-water corals (Lophelia pertusa and Madrepora oculata) during the past 14,000 years

• Published in: Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers
• Main Authors: Fink, Hiske G., Wienberg, Claudia, De Pol-Holz, Ricardo, Hebbeln, Dierk
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2015
• Subjects: Western Basin; Lophelia pertusa
• Online Access: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/29783/; https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/29783/1/1-s2.0-S0967063715001028-main.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr.2015.05.006

Highlights: • Basin-wide assessment of Lophelia and Madrepora since the last glacial. • Corals were most prolific during the Younger Dryas in the eastern Mediterranean. • Lophelia was most prolific during the deglaciation and Early Holocene in the Alboran Sea. • Temporary decline of Lophelia in the Alboran Sea during the Younger Dryas. • Mediterranean cold-water corals are related to high productivity conditions. • Link between cold-water corals and intensified intermediate water mass circulation. Abstract: This study presents newly obtained coral ages of the cold-water corals Lophelia pertusa and Madrepora oculata collected in the Alboran Sea and the Strait of Sicily (Urania Bank). These data were combined with all available Mediterranean Lophelia and Madrepora ages compiled from literature to conduct a basin-wide assessment of the spatial and temporal occurrence of these prominent framework-forming scleractinian species in the Mediterranean realm and to unravel the palaeo-environmental conditions that controlled their proliferation or decline. For the first time special focus was placed on a closer examination of potential differences occurring between the eastern and western Mediterranean sub-basins. Our results clearly demonstrate that cold-water corals occurred sparsely in the entire Mediterranean during the last glacial before becoming abundant during the Bølling-Allerød warm interval, pointing to a basin-wide, almost concurrent onset in (re-)colonisation after ~13.5 ka. This time coincides with a peak in meltwater discharge originating from the northern Mediterranean borderlands which caused a major reorganisation of the Mediterranean thermohaline circulation. During the Younger Dryas and Holocene, some striking differences in coral proliferation were identified between the sub-basins such as periods of highly prolific coral growth in the eastern Mediterranean Sea during the Younger Dryas and in the western basin during the Early Holocene, whereas a temporary pronounced coral decline during the Younger ...