Exploration of relict faunas on the deep slopes of the Queensland Plateau
Final Report Abstract
An exceptional sessile invertebrate fauna was discovered in the 1970s on the Norfolk Ridge in the SW Pacific. This fauna is remarkable because it contains populations of animals that were previously thought to be extinct but have persisted almost unchanged on the deep reef slopes since the late Mesozoic (>65 MYA). Our own expeditions to the Coral Sea in Australia in the mid-1990s discovered components of this deep-water fauna around Osprey- and Shark Reefs, but detailed exploration was not possible at that time. In December 2009 we deployed during a three week expedition a scientific remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to investigate in detail the biodiversity of Mesozoic relict faunas and mud mound-structures down to a depth of 800 m around Osprey- and Shark Reefs on the Queensland Plateau (Coral Sea, Australia). We discovered many components of this fauna, e.g. stalked crinoids, brachiopods, lithistid and hexactinellid sponges, as well as – for the first time in eastern Australia – precious corals. These remnant relict faunas (‘living fossils’) are of great interest to the biodiversity and geobiological sciences as they provide a window into past environments. We have already described several species new to science discovered during our "Deep Downunder" Expedition from the deep slopes of Osprey Reef, more await formal taxonomic description. The resources collected during the expedition fed already into several publications and more is yet to come. This project has provided substantial new knowledge on a completely overlooked and unique marine biodiversity and new genetic resources to promote a further understanding of ecology, (molecular) diversity, phylogeography, phylogeny, and trends in evolution of these ‘living fossils’ and their environments. Our results have also been communicated to the general public in numerous popular science articles, radio interviews, as well as internet videos and TV shows.
Publications
- 2011. A horizontal gene transfer supported the evolution of an early metazoan biomineralization strategy. BMC Evolutionary Biology 11 (1), 238
Jackson, D., Macis, L., Reitner, J., Wörheide, G.
- 2011. Nautilus at Risk – Estimating Population Size and Demography of Nautilus pompilius. PLoS ONE, 6(2), p.e16716
Dunstan, A., Bradshaw, C.J.A. & Marshall, J.
- 2011. Precious coral and rock sponge gardens on the deep aphotic fore-reef of Osprey Reef (Coral Sea, Australia). Coral Reefs 30 (4), 901
Wörheide, G., Vargas, S., Lüter, C., Reitner, J.
- 2011. Systematics and spicule evolution in dictyonal sponges (Hexactinellida: Sceptrulophora) with description of two new species. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 163, 1003–1025
Dohrmann, M., Göcke, C., Janussen, D., Reitner, J., Lüter, C., Wörheide, G.
- 2012. Comparative histology of larval brooding in Thecideoidea (Brachiopoda). Zoologischer Anzeiger - A Journal of Comparative Zoology, 251(4), 288–296
Seidel, R., Hoffmann, J., Kaulfuss, A., Lüter, C.
