Carlos Dominguez-Carrió

• PhD
• Associate Researcher at University of the Azores

The continental shelf and submarine canyon off Cap de Creus (NW Mediterranean) were declared a Site of Community Importance (SCI) within the Natura 2000 Network in 2014. Implementing an effective management plan to preserve its biological diversity and monitor its evolution through time requires a detailed characterization of its benthic ecosystem....

Extensive knowledge exists about the ecology of gorgonian species dwelling in coastal areas of the Mediterranean, but less information is available regarding populations found in deep circalittoral and bathyal environments. In recent years, the use of marine imaging technology has led to the discovery of dense coral gardens below SCUBA depths. This...

Deep‐sea exploration relies on cutting‐edge technology, which generally requires expensive instruments, highly specialized technicians and ship time. The increasing need to gather large‐scale data on the distribution and conservation status of deep‐sea benthic species and habitats could benefit from the availability of low‐cost imaging tools to fac...

We analyzed litter occurrence in 68 underwater video transects performed on the middle/outer continental shelf and submarine canyon off Cap de Creus (NW Mediterranean), an area recently declared Site of Community Importance (SCI). Low densities of urban litter were registered on the shelf (7.2 items ha−1), increasing in abundance towards the deepes...

The deep sea plays a critical role in global climate regulation through uptake and storage of heat and carbon dioxide. However, this regulating service causes warming, acidification and deoxygenation of deep waters, leading to decreased food availability at the seafloor. These changes and their projections are likely to affect productivity, biodive...

Durant els últims anys, la planificació de l’energia eòlica marina a Espanya (un sector industrial nou en el país) s’ha associat a l’ordenació de l’espai marítim en un entorn amb moltes incerteses, especialment pels impactes ecològics, socials, econòmics, energètics i tecnològics relacionats que poden tenir aquestes infraestructures. En aquest arti...

Imaging is increasingly used to capture information on the marine environment thanks to the improvements in imaging equipment, devices for carrying cameras and data storage in recent years. In that context, biologists, geologists, computer specialists and end-users must gather to discuss the methods and procedures for optimising the quality and qua...

iAtlantic Deliverable D2.5 Regional Habitat Suitability Modelling

iAtlantic Deliverable 2.6 Environmental drivers of ecosystem spatial patterns in the Atlantic

This dataset includes 11 regional EUNIS-classified habitat maps (100-1000 km) and associated confidence maps that were created as a project milestone (Nr. 12) of the EU H2020 project 'iAtlantic'. The 12 iAtlantic regions encompass 1. Subpolar Mid-Atlantic Ridge, off Iceland MFRI, 2. Rockall Trough to PAP, 3. Central mid-Atlantic Ridge, 4. NW Atlant...

As offshore wind energy expands in Europe, maritime planners increasingly need to consider the potential effects of these activities on the different types of marine protected areas (MPAs), including Natura 2000 sites. The aim of this article is to critically review the initial development of offshore wind energy inside and/or in the vicinity of Me...

Abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear (ALDFG), represents a significant percentage of the global plastic pollution, currently considered one of the major sources from sea-based activities. However, there is still limited understanding of the quantities of ALDFG present on the seafloor and their impacts. In this study, data on the presence of A...

The presence of different water masses in depth may influence the species distribution and community structure in deep-sea benthic ecosystems. In the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean Outflow Water (MOW) represents an important forcing water mass, whose influence on the distribution of cold-water corals in the northern European margins has been par...

Using the non-invasive aquatic eddy covariance technique, we provide the first oxygen (O 2 ) uptake rates from within coral gardens at the Condor seamount (Azores). To explore some of the key drivers of the benthic O 2 demand, we obtained benthic images, quantified local hydrodynamics, and estimated phototrophic biomass and deposition dynamics with...

Mid-ocean ridges generate a myriad of physical oceanographic processes that favor the supply of food and nutrients to suspension-and filter-feeding organisms, such as cold-water corals and deep-sea sponges. However, the pioneering work conducted along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge failed to report the presence of large and dense living coral reefs, coral...

The survival, behavior and competence period of lecithotrophic larvae depends not only on the energy allocation transferred by maternal colonies but also on the amount of energy consumed to sustain embryonic, larval, and post-larval development. The objective of the present work is to understand the effect of energy consumption on the performance o...

Designing conservation networks requires a well-structured framework for achieving essential objectives such as connectivity, replication or viability, and for considering local management and socioeconomic stakes. Although systematic conservation planning (SCP) approaches are increasingly used to inform such networks, their application remains cha...

The Gigante Seamount Complex is located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, at around 39º N and 30º W (Azores). It comprises a set of seamounts produced by fissural volcanism along ridges and transform faults. It harbours rich and unique benthic communities, many of which are considered Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems. Between 3rd and 24th June 2018, the Blue...

RESUM L’any 2019 es commemoraren els 200 anys del naixement de Narcís Monturiol, enginyer i inventor,en tant que creador, del primer submarí tripulat de propulsió autònoma: l’Ictineu. Des d’ençà, els submarins tingueren i estan tenint un rol cada vegada més rellevant en la recerca científica marina. En aquest treball volem fer un reconeixement a l’...

Climate change manifestation in the ocean, through warming, oxygen loss, increasing acidification and changing particulate organic carbon flux (one metric of altered food supplies), is projected to affect most deep‐ocean ecosystems concomitantly with increasing direct human disturbance. Climate drivers will alter deep‐sea biodiversity and associate...

Litter has become a common component of marine ecosystems, and its assessment and monitoring are now of primary interest. Here, we characterized seafloor litter in the mesophotic depth range of the Ligurian Sea, one of the most urbanized basins of the Mediterranean Sea. Eighty sites (30–220 m depth) were investigated by by means of ROV video transe...

Video and image data are regularly used in the field of benthic ecology to document biodiversity. However, their use is subject to a number of challenges, principally the identification of taxa within the images without associated physical specimens. The challenge of applying traditional taxonomic keys to the identification of fauna from images has...

Seamounts constitute an obstacle to the ocean circulation, modifying it. As a result, a variety of hydrodynamical processes and phenomena may take place over seamounts, among others, flow intensification, current deflection, upwelling, Taylor caps, and internal waves. These oceanographic effects may turn seamounts into very productive ecosystems wi...

The Ligurian Sea is one of the most studied Mediterranean basins. Since the beginning of the last century, many research expeditions have characterized its benthic and pelagic fauna through scuba diving and trawl surveys. However, a large knowledge gap exists about the composition of benthic communities extending into the so-called mesophotic or tw...

The deep sea is considered the largest environment on Earth, providing multiple ecosystem services to human societies. Although its relevance has long been recognized, not enough attention and interest is generally given to it by society, and its study is almost non-existent in formal and informal education. Getting the deep sea closer to the gener...

Coral gardens are increasingly being reported at 40–200 m depth in the Mediterranean Sea. These coral assemblages are composed of gorgonians from shallow coastal rocky bottoms extending their distribution to deeper areas, as well as by gorgonians and black corals with distribution restricted to the continental shelf and upper slope. Gorgonians and...

Knowledge on basic biological functions of organisms is essential to understand not only the role they play in the ecosystems but also to manage and protect their populations. The study of biological processes, such as growth, reproduction and physiology, which can be approached in situ or by collecting specimens and rearing them in aquaria, is par...

Video and image data are regularly used in the field of benthic ecology to document biodiversity. However, their use is subject to a number of challenges, principally the identification of taxa within the images without associated physical specimens. The challenge of applying traditional taxonomic keys to the identification of fauna from images has...

Supplementary material 2. Size structure characteristics of the studied species (only transects were its presence is over 30 individuals). Morphometric parameters include: height, width, perimeter (when applicable), plus standard deviation (SD) and skewness and kourtosis.

Supplementary material 1. - Expanded transects information. Transects correspond numerically with those in Fig. 1.

Nowadays, there is still a huge lack of knowledge regarding the morphology and size structure of sponge populations and their possible ecological implications. This study assesses, by means of quantitative analyses of video transects and morphometric analyses on still photographs, the geographical, bathymetrical and sizestructure distribution of th...

An important goal of the ATLAS project is to improve our understanding of the ocean transport pathways and connectivity of water masses at basin and regional scales relevant for benthic marine ecosystems. The MEDWAVES cruise (21st September-26th October, 2016) aimed to better understand the characteristics of the Mediterranean Outflow Water (MOW) a...

Supplementary material for: Santín, A., Grinyó, J., Ambroso, S., Uriz, M. J., Gori, A., Dominguez-Carrió, C., & Gili, J. M. (2018). Sponge assemblages on the deep Mediterranean continental shelf and slope (Menorca Channel, Western Mediterranean Sea). Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 131, 75-86. Including 1) list of station...

Sponge assemblages on continental shelves and slopes around the world have been known about for centuries. However, due to limitations of the traditional sampling systems, data about individual sponge species rather than assemblages have been reported. This study characterizes sponge assemblages over a wide bathymetric range (~50–350 m depth) and c...

Biodiversity plays an important role in maintaining and improving ecosystem functioning, thereby increasing ecosystem stability. There is convincing evidence suggesting that autogenic ecosystem engineers like gorgonians enhance biodiversity at the local scale (Idjadi & Edmunds, 2006), primarily through changes produced in the environmental condit...

Marine optical imaging has become a major assessment tool in science, policy and public understanding of our seas and oceans. Methodology in this field is developing rapidly, including hardware, software and the ways of their application. The aim of the Marine Imaging Workshop (MIW) is to bring together academics, research scientists and engineers,...

This poster was produced with the support of the FAO-Norway Deep-Seas Fisheries Project (GCP/GLO/323/NOR).

Although underwater technology has developed fast, obtaining high-quality video images from deep-sea assemblages is still a complex and expensive procedure, which heavily relies on state-of-the-art equipment and optimal weather conditions. For this reason, ecological research based on ROV-video images should find ways to extract as much information...

This chapter explains the advantages of using an ecosystem approach (EA) strategy for the management of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). One of the basic principles of the EA strategy is the conservation of ecosystem structure and functioning to maintain ecosystem services. Sustaining the long-term capacity of marine ecosystems, and in this case MPAs...

Several studies using Remotely Operated Vehicles and manned submersibles have recently provided quantitative information on animal forests dominated by gorgonians, black corals, and sponges dwelling at 40–200 m depth in the Mediterranean Sea. These assemblages have received relatively little attention during the last decades due to the fact that th...

Thalia democratica blooms are a recurrent phenomenon in many coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea and have significant ecological effects. To better understand the environmental drivers of salp blooms, we conducted 8 surveys to sample T. democratica in contrasting seasonal, temperature and chlorophyll conditions. In each survey, short-term variat...

Gorgonians are a key group of organisms in benthic marine communities with a wide bathymetric and geographical distribution. Although their presence on continental shelves and slopes has been known for more than 100 years, knowledge concerning the ecology of deep gorgonian species is still in a very preliminary stage. To overcome this situation, go...

Antarctic benthic communities have long been regarded as relicts of the past, since they have developed in a very stable environment and are formed by slow-growing and extraordinary long-lived organisms. However, little is known about the life history traits of gorgonian species, which are considered key components of the Antarctic benthos. In this...

The cooperation EU-ENPI CBC-Med project ECOSAFIMED (2014-15), carried out in Spain, Italy and Tunisia, aims to promote sustainable artisanal fishing practices to improve the environmental status of the benthic communities in Mediterranean Sea. The main premise of this project is that relatively well-preserved benthic communities can still be found...

Knowledge concerning deep Mediterranean gorgonian populations ecology is still widely unknown. To overcome this situation gorgonian assemblages were studied over a large geographical and bathymetrical extent on the continental shelf and upper slope of the Menorca Channel (Northwestern Mediterranean Sea). By means of quantitative analysis of video t...

The marine area of Cap de Creus is of great ecological relevance in the Mediterranean Sea, mainly due to the remarkable productivity of its waters, in consonance with the diversity of species and habitats identified in them. This exceptionality has come at a price, and the number of human related activities occurring in the area has not ceased to i...

Cold-water coral (CWC) reefs constitute one of the most complex deep-sea habitats harboring a vast diversity of associated species. Like other tropical or temperate framework builders, these systems are facing an uncertain future due to several threats, such as global warming and ocean acidification. In the case of Mediterranean CWC communities, th...

A new mound field, the West Melilla mounds, interprete das being cold-water coral mounds, has been recently unveiled along the upper slope of the Mediterranean Moroc can continental margin, a few kilometers west of the Cape Tres Forcas. This study is based on the integration of high-resolution geophysical data (swath bathymetry, parametric sub-bott...

The “South-West Gulf of Lions canyons system” marine area is one of the 10 MPAs declared in Spain under the EU Habitats Directive. It is now a SAC (Special Area of Conservation) in the Natura 2000 network. In the coast (the very north east of the Iberian Peninsula), the Cape Creus is the most notorious element of the landscape. This small peninsula...

Deep-water ecosystems are characterized by relatively low carbonate concentration values and, due to ocean acidification (OA), these habitats might be among the first to be exposed to undersaturated conditions in the forthcoming years. However, until now, very few studies have been conducted to test how cold-water coral (CWC) species react to such...

Cold-water coral (CWC) reefs constitute one of the most complex deep-sea habitats harboring a vast diversity of associated species. Like other tropical or temperate framework builders, these systems are facing an uncertain future due to several threats, such as global warming and ocean acidification. In the case of Mediterranean CWC communities, th...

Deep-water ecosystems are characterized by relatively low carbonate concentration values and, due to ocean acidification (OA), these habitats might be among the first to be exposed to undersaturated conditions in the forthcoming years. However, until now, very few studies have been conducted to test how cold-water coral (CWC) species react to such...

Current knowledge on the abundance and distribution patterns of different soft coral species is relatively limited when compared to other benthic suspension feeders such as gorgonians and hard coral species. To overcome this scarcity of information, the distribution patterns of the soft corals Alcyonium acaule and Alcyonium palmatum were investigat...

Sessile marine organisms respond to environmental disturbance and predation by means of different adaptive strategies. Sea pens (Octocorallia, Pennatulacea) are colonial cnidarians adapted to survive on the muddy and sandy bottoms of the continental shelf and slope. Some of them can withdraw partially or completely into the sediment on an apparent...

Ciertas especies de ofiuras forman agrupaciones que favorecen el desarrollo individual, un comportamiento gregario que debió ser más común en el pasado. Uno de los patrones biológicos más sorprendentes que pueden observarse en la naturaleza corresponde a las agregaciones animales. Estas parecen ser una regla en numerosos grupos: se conocen tanto p...

The mean predicted decrease of 0.3 to 0.4 pH units in the global surface ocean by the end of the century has prompted urgent research to assess the potential effects of ocean acidification on the marine environment, with strong emphasis on calcifying organisms. Among them, the Mediterranean red coral (Corallium rubrum) is expected to be particularl...

DISTRIBUCIÓN ESPACIAL • Se identificaron 648 colonias A. acaule, (91,5% de todas las colonias) y 60 colonias de A. palmatum (8,5% de las colonias). • A. acaule tiene una densidad máxima de 18,4 colonias m-2 mientras que A. palmatum presenta una densidad máxima de 2,4 colonias m-2. • A. acaule es presente en toda el área de estudio con frecuencias m...

En el medio marino, la mayor parte de las reservas marinas se encuentran en la zona litoral y la posible extensión con la plataforma o el mar profundo se plantea como un enfoque ecosistémico. La mayor parte de las plataformas han recibido el impacto de la pesca de arrastre que ha incrementado de una forma exponencial el fraccionamiento del hábitat...

Los resultados preliminares obtenidos a partir de las imágenes de video obtenidas indican que existe una buena correlación entre las múltiples tipologías de fondo encontradas y las diferentes comunidades bentónicas asociadas. Las zonas de la plataforma que presentan sustratos duros (roca aflorante o subaflorante) se ven dominadas por esponjas de la...

Paramuricea macrospina (Koch, 1882) es una especie mediterránea muy poco conocida, que ha resultado ser muy abundante en el Canal de Menorca. Se han podido diferenciar 3 morfotipos: el morfotipo amarillo (PMA) y el lila (PML) en la plataforma continental, y el morfotipo rosado (PMR) en el margen continental. Hasta la fecha se han realizado muy poco...

Comunidades semi-profundas de fondos rocosos:  En el sector sureste y en la cabecera del cañón de Son Bou, se encuentran comunidades dominadas por antipatários (Antipathella subpinnata, Antipathes dichotoma), por distintas especies de octocoralarios (Eunicella sp. Callogorgia verticillata, Paramuricea clavata, Nidalia studeri) y por las esponjas P...

The increasing interest in marine protected areas applying a holistic ecosystem approach has expanded beyond the littoral zone. In order to sustainably manage coastal marine reserves, the entire continental shelf and upper slope should be protected. Recent findings in cold-water corals have influenced the Natura 2000 Network program, which is creat...

En el sedimento de las plataformas continentales abundan los organismos que se alimentan sobre todo de partículas en suspensión. Las plataformas continentales represen-tan la zona de transición entre los eco-sistemas costeros y el mar profundo. Los fondos marinos de estas plataformas cons-tituyen zonas sedimentarias en las que se de-positan todo ti...

Informe final área LIFE+ INDEMARES (LIFE07/NAT/E/000732). Instituto de Ciencias del Mar/CSIC (Barcelona). Coordinación: Fundación Biodiversidad, Madrid. 272 pág.