Jordi Grinyó

NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research | NIOZ · OCS (TX) – Ocean Systems

Behavioral response of deep-sea sponges can provide crucial insights into the mechanisms shaping energy fluxes and ecosystem functioning. Although some advances have been made, the behavior of deep-sea Hexactinellid still remain widely unknown. In the present study we address the glass sponge Vazella pourtalesii behavior. High temporal resolution i...

Megabenthic communities on the Northwestern Mediterranean Sea are among the most studied in the world. These communities, rich in sessile arborescent taxa, form animal forests with complex three-dimensional structures that are subjected to the impact of fishing. Bottom contact gears, long-lines, gills and trammel nets entangling, results in organis...

The Mediterranean Sea has historically been significantly impacted by several anthropogenic activities, with commercial fishing being of utmost importance. Trawling and other bottom-contact fishing methods have led to the depletion of stocks and alteration of the sea floor over time. These fishing practices have impacted habitat quality, biodiversi...

The rapid advancement of digital technologies such as digital twins, AI and machine learning has opened up promising avenues for ecological actions, including conservation, research and restoration. These technologies offer improved monitoring capabilities that can enhance our understanding of ecological processes and biodiversity. The EU-funded DI...

Deep-sea explorations performed over the last two decades have shown evidence of abundant living cold-water coral communities in the Mediterranean Sea. Many submarine canyons, escarpments, seamounts, and outer continental shelf and slope areas support communities dominated by scleractinian cold-water corals or coral gardens composed of a diverse fa...

Bottom trawling can significantly affect benthic communities, directly through immediate removal of sessile organisms and indirectly through sediment resuspension. Submarine canyons, often surrounded by fishing grounds, are important habitats for cold-water corals (CWC). Vulnerability of CWCs to increased suspended sediment concentration (SSC) is k...

A new species of sea anemone (Actiniaria, Metridioidea) is described and illustrated from cold-water coral environments at 600 m depth at the Blanes Canyon in the north-western Mediterranean Sea. Litophellia enoplosa sp. nov. is characterized by a column divisible into scapus and scapulus, the former with cuticle forming tenaculi, a mesogleal margi...

Artisanal fisheries, although considered less harmful, can still endanger marine ecosystems, especially in areas with long-standing tradition. In Cap de Creus, where artisanal fisheries has likely occurred for centuries, the status of benthic communities in fishing grounds was poorly understood. Through collaboration with local fishers, the benthic...

The glass sponge Vazella pourtalesii thrives in dense populations along the Canadian Atlantic continental shelf, providing a habitat for a diverse range of associated species. To investigate its temporal dynamics and primary environmental drivers, a V. pourtalesii assemblage was monitored for a period of 10 months using a video-equipped Lander. Emp...

The genus Sebastes is a morphologically and ecologically diverse genus of rockfish characterized by high longevity, late-maturity and low natural mortality. On the northwest Atlantic continental shelf, the Acadian redfish (Sebastes fasciatus) is the most common rockfish species above 300 m depth. This species has been widely exploited resulting in...

Although Astrospartus mediterraneus (Risso, 1826) is an emblematic Mediterranean species, limited information is currently available, as it has not received much attention from the marine scientific community to date. In this context, an unusually high abundance of this basket star was observed in 2018 as part of the by-catch of local artisanal fis...

n this chapter, we will mainly focus on some of the most relevant low-light habitats among those found along the continental shelf and margins, including habitats which receive multiple human-induced disturbances, unique and scarcely known assemblages (e.g., brachiopod beds), as well as those for which we have relatively better ecological knowledge...

n this chapter, we will mainly focus on some of the most relevant low-light habitats among those found along the continental shelf and margins, including habitats which receive multiple human-induced disturbances, unique and scarcely known assemblages (e.g., brachiopod beds), as well as those for which we have relatively better ecological knowledge...

Despite cold-water coral (CWC) reefs being considered biodiversity hotspots, very little is known about the main processes driving their morphological development. Indeed, there is a considerable knowledge gap in quantitative experimental studies that help understand the interaction between reef morphology, near-bed hydrodynamics, coral growth, and...

The Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus, supports a key European fishery. Stock assessments for this species are mostly based on trawling and UnderWater TeleVision (UWTV) surveys. However, N. norvegicus are burrowing organisms and these survey methods are unable to sample or observe individuals in their burrows. To account for this, UWTV surveys ge...

The processes that control diversification and speciation in deep-sea species are poorly known. Here, we analyzed data produced by Restriction-Site Associated DNA Sequencing (RAD-Seq) of octocorals in the genus Paramuricea to elucidate diversification patterns and examine the role of environmental gradients in their evolution. The genus Paramuricea...

Deep-sea ecosystems of the Iberian margin have been widely impacted over the past decades, but the limited knowledge on their biodiversity and functioning limits our ability to contribute to their conservation. So far, in the Gulf of Cadiz, research has mostly been focused on megabenthic assemblages associated to mud volcanoes. However, several oth...

During the 20th and 21st centuries, the growing demand for marine resources by Mediterranean countries has led to a gradual increase in fishing pressure. As a result, both coastal and continental Mediterranean waters have suffered from the impacts of trawling and, to a lesser extent, of artisanal fishing with longlines, trammel nets and other minor...

Fishing is one of the human activities with the highest impact on seabeds. During the past hundred years it has gradually expanded to deeper waters, and almost all continental shelf and slopes worldwide have now been fished to some extent. In EU managed fishing grounds between 200 and 1000 m depth, it is estimated that bottom trawling has impacted...

Astrospartus mediterraneus (Risso, 1826) (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea) is an emblematic Mediterranean species yet, it has few reports and hasn't received much attention from the marine scientific community to date. In the framework of a project to assess how to mitigate the impact of artisanal fishing on benthic communities at the Site of Community...

Cold-water coral (CWC) gardens, mainly composed of gorgonians, soft corals and black corals, support a highly diversified associated mobile fauna, representing a key benthic habitat on the Mediterranean continental shelf. These communities are vulnerable to bottom-contact fishing gears, including trawling and small-scale fishing. In the frame of a...

The negative effects from recurrent industrial fishing are widespread in the Mediterranean Sea waters, being the conservation status of the benthic ecosystems especially critical in the Catalan continental margin (NW Mediterranean Sea), which is identified as a hotspot of ecological importance due to the high concentration of endangered, threatened...

Sea pens (Octocorallia, Pennatulacea) are a specialized and morphologically distinct group of octocorals. The majority of them have adapted to survive on soft sediments with the help of an anchoring muscular peduncle. The whip-like sea pen Protoptilum carpenteri is considered a deep-sea North Atlantic species, which recently has been documented als...

Cold-water gorgonians dwelling on the continental shelf are a common by-catch of bottom-contact fishing practices. Given the slow growth and limited recruitment of cold-water gorgonians, the impact of fishing activities may seriously compromise the conservation of the highly complex coral gardens communities. For this reason, the development of eff...

PLOME proposes a spatially adaptive, non-invasive, modular platform of independent and wirelessly connected benthic stations and AUVs to intelligently observe, monitor and map marine ecosystems, during long-lasting periods with real-time supervision. The proposal brings together elements that can be effectively developed with current technology, to...

Cold-water coral (CWC) habitats dwell on continental shelves, slopes, seamounts, and ridge systems around the world’s oceans from 50 to 4000 m depth, providing heterogeneous habitats which support a myriad of associated fauna. These highly diverse ecosystems are threatened by human stressors such as fishing activities, gas and oil exploitation, and...

Cold-water coral reefs (CWC) are known to be biodiversity hotspots, however, the sponge assemblages found to dwell within these habitats haven not been studied in depth to date in the Mediterranean Sea. The present article provides the first insight on the associated sponge fauna of the recently discovered CWC communities on the Catalan Margin and,...

Deep-sea environments in the Mediterranean Sea have been widely degraded over the past decades and thus there is an urgent need to implement protection measures. Within European Union's Mediterranean waters vast extensions of the deep-sea ecologically relevant ecosystems have been protected by integrating them to the Natura 2000 network. Inside the...

Imaging technologies are being deployed on cabled observatory networks worldwide. They allow for the monitoring of the biological activity of deep-sea organisms on temporal scales that were never attained before. In this paper, we customized Convolutional Neural Network image processing to track behavioral activities in an iconic conservation deep-...

This Collective Article presents information about 21 taxa belonging to seven Phyla (one Ochrophyta, one Porifera, three Cni-daria, two Arthropoda, three Mollusca, one Echinodermata, and ten Chordata) and extending from the western Mediterranean Sea to the Levantine Sea. The new records were reported from nine countries as follows: Spain: first rec...

Nowadays, there are an increasing number of reports of deep-sea accumulation of marine debris, often associated with a wide array of pernicious effects on benthic fauna. Nevertheless, there is still a huge knowledge gap regarding the interaction of benthic organisms and marine debris. In this paper, we report for the first time the colonization of...

Image-based research in mesophotic and deep environments of the Mediterranean Sea has significantly increased during the past decades. So far, this research has been focused on the ecology of key structuring organisms such as scleractinians, antipatharians, gorgonians or large demosponges. However, the ecology of true soft corals has barely been st...

Megabenthic assemblages in deep-sea sedimentary environments receive far less attention than those occurring on rocky environments, despite they have been widely impacted by destructive trawling activities, mainly due to their association with important commercial species. ROV dives conducted on bathyal muds of the Alboran Sea continental slope (we...

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’...

Cold-water corals (CWC) are known to be deep-sea biodiversity hotspots, yet there is still a huge knowledge gap regarding their associated fauna. As so, CWC ecosystems pose as a perfect environment for the discovery of new species. In this context two new species of Hamigera (Demospongiae) have been recorded associated with CWC in antipodal parts o...

This study provides a first characterization of the geomorphic features and relative habitats of the Francesc Page`s Bank, located on the upper slope of the Moroccan continental margin in the southern Alboran Sea, western Mediterranean. The Francesc Page`s Bank is an ellipsoidal structural high covering 80 km2 within a depth range of 76�580 m. High...

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...

During the ABIDES (Assessment of Bottom-trawling Impacts in DEep-sea Sediments) Project, 20 ROV dives were conducted along the Catalan margin (NW Mediterranean) targeting heavily exploited continental slope fishing grounds, with the aim of exploring the impact of bottom trawling activities on the sedimentary environment and deep-sea benthic communi...

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...

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.

• In the Mediterranean Sea, gorgonians are among the main habitat‐forming species of benthic communities on the continental shelf and slope, playing an important ecological role in coral gardens. • In areas where bottom trawling is restricted, gorgonians represent one of the main components of trammel net bycatch. Since gorgonians are long‐lived an...

Scleractinian cold-water coral (CWC) reefs are key habitats for benthic fauna as they enhance spatial heterogeneity and biodiversity. Understanding their environmental and ecological dynamics has therefore important implications for biodiversity conservation. This is especially true for the Mediterranean Sea, where living cold-water coral reefs are...

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...

Gorgonians play an important structural and functional role promoting high diversity and biomass of associated fauna. Up to now, studies on gorgonian ecology in the Mediterranean Sea have been focused mainly on the SCUBA diving depth range. Although increased availability of remotely operated vehicles allowed access to the deeper areas, gorgonian a...

This study examined the sexual reproductive cycle, energy storage and metabolic requirements of a Mediterranean gorgonian in a mesophotic ecosystem (~70 m depth). Paramuricea macrospina resulted to be a gonochoric internal brooding species with a 1:1 population sex ratio. Oogenesis lasted ~12–14 months, whereas spermatogenesis was significantly sho...

Fatty acid composition (% of total fatty acids) of Paramuricea macrospina colonies (N = 46) (mean ± SD). (PDF)

The cold-water coral (CWC) Dendrophyllia cornigera is widely distributed in areas of both high and low productivity, suggesting a significant trophic plasticity of this coral depending on the food available in the environment. In this study, lipid biomarkers and their isotopic signature were compared in colonies of D. cornigera and sediment from th...

Exploration of the ocean is still one of the greatest challenges facing humankind. In the last decades our knowledge has increased considerably, thanks mainly to technological advances such as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and manned underwater vehicles, as well as new acoustic techniques that allow us to see the sea floor on a computer screen...

La exploración del océano sigue siendo uno de los grandes retos de la humanidad. En las últimas décadas se ha avanzado mucho en su conocimiento, gracias sobre todo a adelantos tecnológicos como los vehículos operados remotamente (ROV) o los submarinos tripulados, además de técnicas acústicas que permiten visualizar el relieve del fondo marino en la...

In the present work, possible long-term changes in the planktonic cnidarian community were investigated by analyzing (1) species and community spatial distribution patterns, (2) variations in abundance and (3) changes in species richness during three mesoscale surveys representative of the climatic and anthropogenic changes that have occurred durin...

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...

Particle fluxes have been widely studied in canyons located in continental margins; conversely, particle fluxes in canyons in sediment starved margins incising small island margins have received very little attention and remain poorly understood. The Menorca Canyon is the largest canyon system in the Balearic Archipelago. Despite the high oligotrop...

Morphological variability in gorgonians is frequent and commonly associated with habitat variability, often resulting in segregated morphotypes. Paramuricea macrospina is an endemic Mediterranean gorgonian species found on rocky bottoms between 40 and 160 m depth and has recently been reported as one of the most abundant species in continental shel...

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...

The existence of sponge assemblages in continental shelves and slopes has been known for centuries; however, due to sampling limitations associated to the traditional sampling systems, individual sponge species rather than assemblages were mainly reported. The current study characterizes sponge assemblages over a large geographic area and bathymetr...

This document aims to establish guidelines for inventorying and monitoring Mediterranean deep-sea habitats and marine caves in order to settle the basis for a regional-based assessment. Furthermore, it aims at reviewing the known distribution and main characteristics of these ecosystems. Although the Dark Habitats Action Plan covers entirely dark c...

Although scientific knowledge on dark habitats has increased during the last decades, there is still a significant gap today. The number of human activities and pressures impacting marine habitats has considerably increased throughout the Mediterranean, including deep-sea habitats (e.g. destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling, oil and...

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...

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...

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...

Technological development and increased availability of remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and manned submersibles have significantly increased accessibility to deep environments revealing the presence of rich and diverse macrobenthic assemblages dominated by suspension feeders. These assemblages have been largely exposed to the impacts of fishing a...

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...