Testing Side-Scan Sonar and Multibeam Echosounder to Study Black Coral Gardens: A Case Study from Macaronesia

• Main Authors: Karolina Czechowska, Peter Feldens, Fernando Tuya, Marcial Cosme de Esteban, Fernando Espino, Ricardo Haroun, Mischa Schönke, Francisco Otero-Ferrer
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-10-01
• Series: Remote Sensing
• Subjects: acoustic technologies; seafloor mapping; spatial analysis; bathymetry; mesophotic habitats; <i>Antipathella wollastoni</i>
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/19/3244

Black corals (order Antipatharia) are important components of mesophotic and deep-water marine communities, but due to their inaccessibility, there is limited knowledge about the basic aspects of their distribution and ecology. The aim of this study was to test methodologies to map and study colonies of a branched antipatharian species, <i>Antipathella wollastoni</i>, in the Canary Islands (Spain). Acoustic tools, side-scan sonar (SSS), and a multibeam echosounder (MBES), coupled with ground-truthing video surveys, were used to determine the habitat characteristics of <i>Antipathella wollastoni</i>. Below 40 m depth, colonies of increasing height (up to 1.3 m) and abundance (up to 10 colonies/m<inline-formula><math display="inline"><semantics><msup><mrow></mrow><mn>2</mn></msup></semantics></math></inline-formula>) were observed, particularly on steep and current-facing slopes on rocky substrates. However, coral presence was not directly imaged on backscatter mosaics and bathymetric data. To improve this situation, promising initial attempts of detecting <i>Antipathella wollastoni</i> by utilizing the MBES water column scatter in an interval for 0.75 m to 1 m above the seafloor are reported.