Coral habitats show an immense biodiversity and importance for marine life. To know what lives in coral habitats is the basis for a better understanding and promoting its protection. With this catalog we want to foster the study and knowledge on foraminifera in coral ecosystem. The catalog shows what is there and helps with identification. The catalog is freely accessible. The images are copyright protected.
Avocational and professional scientists get a platform to show the foraminifera they found in a well structure database environment. Contributors will get an own page with their foraminifera and links.
The images show the calcareous tests of foraminifera which are remaining after death. The illustrated specimens are from material which was sampled in coral habitats ranging from living coral reefs to associated habitats and dead coral rubble. Species shown may not only occur in coral habitats.
The catalog is not by far comprehensive especially regarding space and geological time. Contributions of raw material, specimens and illustrations are welcome to enlarge the coverage.
We are very grateful to the contributors:
Leon Hoffman and Dr. André Freiwald from Senckenberg am Meer, Abteilung Meeresforschung Wilhelmshaven,
Dr. Shai Oron from the Ben Gurion University of the Negev,
Family Meyer and Karl-Otto Bock,
Miriam Mende,
Bernard Remaud from Sable du Monde,
Jan Steger,
Roland Verreet and
Cai-Uso Wohler.
Cold-water corals (CWC) occur in all oceans, within all climate zones and down to abyssal water depths. In contrast to their tropical, shallow-water counterparts that host symbiotic zooxanthellae (algae), CWCs do not depend on light. For this catalog not only coral reefs and gardens are defined as a CWC habitat but also areas with seapens, solitary corals and coral rubble. A detailed list of these CWC habitats is given in Guillaumont et al., 2016, which may be accessed at
https://zenodo.org/record/580684.
Planktonic foraminifera found in samples from CWC habitats are included, although CWC habitats are so far defined as being benthic only. This definition may be extended when the influence of CWC on the habitats above them is better understood. A practical reason is to facilitate the discrimination between benthic and planktonic foraminifera when working on samples from CWC habitats. The database-interface of the catalog allows to set a
filter for benthic foraminifera only.
Reference: Guillaumont B., Tempera F., Davies, J. S., Vertino A, Beuck, L, Ólafsdóttir S H, Smith C, Fossa J H, Van Den Beld I, Savini A, Rengstorf A, Grehan, A. 2016. CoralFISH Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean Cold-Water Coral Habitats Catalogue.
Warm-water corals occur in tropcial oceans in shallow-water. They host symbiotic zooxanthellae (algae), which depend on light.
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