Mesophotic coral reefs, currently defined as deep reefs between 30 and 150 m, are linked
physically and biologically to their shallow water counterparts, have the potential to be …

Background Globally, shallow-water coral reef biodiversity is at risk from a variety of threats,
some of which may attenuate with depth. Mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs), occurring …

Habitat associations underpin species ecologies in high-diversity systems. Within tropical,
shallow water coral reefs, the relationship between fishes and corals is arguably the most …

Although the existence of zooxanthellate corals in mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs;
light-dependent coral ecosystems from 30 to 150 m in depth) has been known since the …

Marine ecology seeks to understand the factors that shape biological communities. Progress
towards this goal has been hampered by habitat‐centric approaches that ignore the …

Coral reef fishes often exhibit specific or restricted depth distributions, but the factors (biotic
or abiotic) that influence patterns of depth use are largely unknown. Given inherent …

A major goal of ecology is to explain the mechanisms that drive species distributions and
ecological partitioning along gradients in the natural environment. The distributions of …

Deeper reefs are often considered to be less susceptible to local and global disturbances,
such as overfishing, pollution and climate change, compared to shallow reefs and therefore …

The spatial distribution of a species assemblage is often determined by habitat and climate.
In the marine environment, depth can become an important factor as declining light and …

The bathymetric and geographical distribution of marine species represent a key information
in biodiversity conservation. Yet, deep‐sea ecosystems are among the least explored on …