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Deep coral reefs in a "twilit zone" in the oceans differ greatly from those near the surface, dampening the hope that they may be a haven for marine life fleeing such threats than climate change and pollution. a team of divers who were studying little-known reefs in the western and Pacific oceans between 100 and 500 feet deep where sunlight blurred, most species of coral and fish were different from those of the surface. little overlap, "senior author Luiz Rocha of the California Academy of Sciences said Reuters results published in the journal Science . According to historical records, less than five percent of the fish and corals were found in shallow and deep waters against the previous estimate of scientists of 60 to 75%, he said.
"Deep reefs can act in a the capacity is far below what we had hoped for before, "they wrote, and, like shallow reefs, deep reefs also faced threats such as climate change, storms, and pollution. divers found, for example, plastic fishing nets entangled in the deep corals of the Philippines and deep corals damaged by the warm waters of the Bahamas
Protecting Deep Reefs
Rocha says that scientists were trying to place temperature sensors in the twilight zone to see how deep the reefs were exposed to rising ocean temperatures, which are the most extreme at the surface. Deep reefs covered at least the same ocean area around the world as shallow reefs, he says. Some reefs, such as those at the mouth of the Amazon, only exist in the depths. The authors advocate better guarantees for deep reefs, for example by expanding protected areas and prohibiting bottom trawlers that can scrape the seabed.
A 2016 study by the United Nations Environment Program showed that some deep reefs could act as he called "lifeboats" for nearby and related shallow reefs. But he said that in other cases, deep reefs "may be just as vulnerable as shallow reefs" to human pressures
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