Description: The Central and South Atlantic represents a vast ocean area and is home to a diverse range of ecosystems and species. Nevertheless, and similar to the rest of the global south, the area is comparatively understudied yet exposed to increasing levels of multisectoral pressures. To counteract this, the level of scientific exploration in the Central and South Atlantic has increased in recent years and will likely continue to do so within the context of the United Nations (UN) Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Here, we compile the literature to investigate the distribution of previous scientific exploration of offshore (30 m+) ecosystems in the Central and South Atlantic, both within and beyond national jurisdiction, allowing us to synthesise overall patterns of biodiversity. Furthermore, through the lens of sustainable management, we have reviewed the existing anthropogenic activities and associated management measures relevant to the region. Through this exercise, we have identified key knowledge gaps and undersampled regions that represent priority areas for future research and commented on how these may be best incorporated into, or enhanced through, future management measures such as those in discussion at the UN Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction negotiations. This review represents a comprehensive summary for scientists and managers alike looking to understand the key topographical, biological, and legislative features of the Central and South Atlantic.

Description: Reefs formed by scleractinian cold-water corals represent unique biodiversity hot spots in the deep sea, preferring aphotic water depths of 200–1000 m. The distribution of the most prominent reef-building species Lophelia pertusa is controlled by various environmental factors including dissolved oxygen concentrations and temperature. Consequently, the expected ocean deoxygenation and warming triggered by human-induced global change are considered as a serious threat to cold-water coral reefs. Here, we present results on recently discovered reefs in the SE Atlantic, where L. pertusa thrives in hypoxic and rather warm waters. This sheds new light on its capability to adapt to extreme conditions, which is facilitated by high surface ocean productivity, resulting in extensive food supply. Putting our data in an Atlantic-wide perspective clearly demonstrates L. pertusa’s ability to develop population-specific adaptations, which are up to now hardly considered in assessing its present and future distributions.

Description: Highlights • Holocene cold-water coral mound formation started non-synchronous in Belgica province. • Coral mounds and slope sediments record changes in intermediate water mass dynamics. • Increased turbulent bottom currents steered slope erosion and mound formation. • Internal waves at the ENAW-MOW boundary enhance energy supply and particle flux. • Transition zone between the ENAW-MOW shifted 250 m upslope during the last deglacial. Abstract Turbulent bottom currents significantly influence the formation of cold-water coral mounds and sedimentation processes on continental slopes. Combining records from coral mounds and adjacent slope sediments therefore provide an unprecedented palaeo-archive to understand past variations of intermediate water-mass dynamics. Here, we present coral ages from coral mounds of the Belgica province (Porcupine Seabight, NE Atlantic), which indicate a non-synchronous Holocene re-activation in mound formation suggested by a temporal offset of ∼2.7 kyr between the deep (start: ∼11.3 ka BP at 950 m depth) and shallow (start: ∼8.6 ka BP at 700 m depth) mounds. A similar depth-dependent pattern is revealed in the slope sediments close to these mounds that become progressively younger from 22.1 ka BP at 990 m to 12.2 ka BP at 740 m depth (based on core-top ages). We suggest that the observed changes are the consequence of enhanced bottom-water hydrodynamics, caused by internal waves associated to the re-invigoration of the Mediterranean Outflow Water (MOW) and the development of a transition zone (TZ) between the MOW and the overlying Eastern North Atlantic Water (ENAW), which established during the last deglacial. These highly energetic conditions induced erosion adjacent to the Belgica mounds and supported the re-initiation of mound formation by increasing food and sediment fluxes. The striking depth-dependent patterns are likely linked to a shift of the ENAW-MOW-TZ, moving the level of maximum energy ∼250 m upslope since the onset of the last deglaciation.

Description: Cold-water corals (CWCs) constitute important deep-water ecosystems that are under increasing environmental pressure due to ocean acidification and global warming. The sensitivity of these deep-water ecosystems to environmental change is demonstrated by abundant paleorecords drilled through CWC mounds that reveal characteristic alterations between rapid formation and dormant or erosive phases. Previous studies have identified several central parameters for driving or inhibiting CWC growth such as food supply, oxygenation, and the carbon saturation state of bottom water, yet there are still large uncertainties about the relative importance of the different environmental parameters. To advance this debate we have performed a multiproxy study on a sediment core retrieved from the 25 m high Bowie Mound, located at 866 m water depth on the continental slope off southeastern Brazil, a structure built up mainly by the CWC Solenosmilia variabilis. Our results indicate a multifactorial control on CWC growth at Bowie Mound during the past ∼ 160 kyr, which reveals distinct formation pulses during northern high-latitude glacial cold events (Heinrich stadials, HSs) largely associated with anomalously strong monsoonal rainfall over the continent. The ensuing enhanced runoff elevated the terrigenous nutrient and organic-matter supply to the continental margin and likely boosted marine productivity. The dispersal of food particles towards the CWC colonies during HSs was facilitated by the highly dynamic hydraulic conditions along the continental slope that prevailed throughout glacial periods. These conditions caused the emplacement of a pronounced nepheloid layer above Bowie Mound, thereby aiding the concentration and along-slope dispersal of organic matter. Our study thus emphasizes the impact of continental climate variability on a highly vulnerable deep-marine ecosystem.

Description: The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) plays a crucial role in global ocean circulation by fostering deep-water upwelling and formation of new water masses. On geological time-scales, ACC variations are poorly constrained beyond the last glacial. Here, we reconstruct changes in ACC strength in the central Drake Passage in vicinity of the modern Polar Front over a complete glacial-interglacial cycle (i.e., the past 140,000 years), based on sediment grain-size and geochemical characteristics. We found significant glacial-interglacial changes of ACC flow speed, with weakened current strength during glacials and a stronger circulation in interglacials. Superimposed on these orbital-scale changes are high-amplitude millennial-scale fluctuations, with ACC strength maxima correlating with diatom-based Antarctic winter sea-ice minima, particularly during full glacial conditions. We infer that the ACC is closely linked to Southern Hemisphere millennial-scale climate oscillations, amplified through Antarctic sea ice extent changes. These strong ACC variations modulated Pacific-Atlantic water exchange via the “cold water route” and potentially affected the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and marine carbon storage.

Description: Highlights • First granulometric record of Holocene Atlantic water inflow into Labrador Sea. • Good temporal correlation with North Atlantic current speeds and AMOC. • Highest current speeds in the early Holocene, lowest during the Neoglaciation. • Distinction between Atlantic water inflow and influence crucial for paleo-studies. • Local ice sheet advances in SW Greenland during “8.2”-event and Neoglaciation. Abstract The hydrodynamics of the Labrador Sea, controlled by the complex interplay of oceanographic, atmospheric and ice-sheet processes, play a crucial role for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). An improved understanding of the hydrodynamics and its forcing in the past could therefore hold a key to understanding its future behaviour. At present, there is a remarkable temporal mismatch, in that the largely microfossil-based reconstructions of Holocene Atlantic-water inflow/influence in the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay appear to lag grain size-based current strength reconstructions from the adjacent North Atlantic by 〉 2ka. Here, we present the first current strength record from the West Greenland shelf off Nuuk to reconstruct Atlantic Water (AW)-inflow to the Labrador Sea via the West Greenland Current. Our data show that the Holocene AW-inflow into Labrador Sea is well aligned with the Holocene Speed Maximum documented in the North Atlantic (McCave and Andrews, 2019; Quat. Sci. Rev. 223), suggesting a close coupling with the AMOC. The observed lag between the microfossil-based records and the Holocene Speed Maximum can be explained when considering the presence of an extended meltwater lens that prevented the shoaling of the inflowing Atlantic waters. Once the meltwater discharge waned after the cessation of large-scale melting of the surrounding ice sheets, the AW could influence the surface waters, independently of the strength of its inflow. Only then was an effective ocean-atmosphere heat transfer enabled, triggering the comparably late onset of the regional Holocene Thermal Maximum. Furthermore, sediment geochemical analyses show that short term cooling events, such as the 8.2 ka event related to the final drainage of glacial Lake Agassiz, lead to glacier advances of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Since the grain size data show that these events had no influence on the AW-inflow to the north eastern Labrador Sea, these advances must have been caused by atmospheric cooling. Consequently, we argue that (i) in this region, surface water-based proxies register AW influence rather than inflow (ii) the AW inflow into the Labrador Sea is controlled by the AMOC, but (iii) its impact on an effective ocean-atmosphere heat transfer was hindered by a prevailing meltwater lens in the early Holocene, i.e. until the cessation of large-scale melting of the surrounding ice sheets.

Description: Ocean acidification is a threat to deep-sea corals and could lead to dramatic and rapid loss of the reef framework habitat they build. Weakening of structurally critical parts of the coral reef framework can lead to physical habitat collapse on an ecosystem scale, reducing the potential for biodiversity support. The mechanism underpinning crumbling and collapse of corals can be described via a combination of laboratory-scale experiments and mathematical and computational models. We synthesise data from electron back-scatter diffraction, micro-computed tomography, and micromechanical experiments, supplemented by molecular dynamics and continuum micromechanics simulations to predict failure of coral structures under increasing porosity and dissolution. Results reveal remarkable mechanical properties of the building material of cold-water coral skeletons of 462 MPa compressive strength and 45-67 GPa stiffness. This is 10 times stronger than concrete, twice as strong as ultrahigh performance fibre reinforced concrete, or nacre. Contrary to what would be expected, CWCs retain the strength of their skeletal building material despite a loss of its stiffness even when synthesised under future oceanic conditions. As this is on the material length-scale, it is independent of increasing porosity from exposure to corrosive water or bioerosion. Our models then illustrate how small increases in porosity lead to significantly increased risk of crumbling coral habitat. This new understanding, combined with projections of how seawater chemistry will change over the coming decades, will help support future conservation and management efforts of these vulnerable marine ecosystems by identifying which ecosystems are at risk and when they will be at risk, allowing assessment of the impact upon associated biodiversity.

Description: Highlights • Atlantic and Mediterranean water-mass interface depth affected coral mound growth. • Sapropel derived events had a detrimental influence on coral mound development. • A shift in the reef-building dominating coral species occurred during the Holocene. • The southern mound has been subjected to less favourable environmental conditions. Abstract Cold-water coral mounds are key hot-spots of deep ocean biodiversity and also important archives of past climatic conditions. Nonetheless, the paleo-oceanographic setting in which coral mounds developed in the Mediterranean Sea during the last 500 ka still needs to be properly understood. This study describes the coral deposits and corresponding ages of two on-mound gravity cores acquired from opposite sectors of the newly discovered Cabliers Coral Mound Province (CMP, Alboran Sea, W Mediterranean). U–Th data revealed Pleistocene-aged corals covering mound formation periods from 〉389 to 9.3 ka BP and from 13.7 to 0.3 ka BP in the southern and northern mounds respectively. The coral-rich deposits of the cores were mainly dominated by Desmophyllum pertusum, although in some sections concurrent with the Middle Pleistocene and the Holocene, other corals such as Dendrophyllia cornigera and Madrepora oculata also appeared as dominating species. Coral mound formation stages generally occurred during deglacials and temperate interstadial (3.5–4.1 δ18O‰) periods, whereas during interglacials (〈3.5 δ18O‰) coral mound formation only occurred in the northern and shallower mound. We interpret this to indicate that the shoaling of the interface between Atlantic (AW) and Levantine Intermediate Waters (LIW) during interglacial periods prevented the corals in the southern CMP from acquiring sufficient food supply, thus causing periods of coral mound stagnation. Similarly, the interruption in LIW formation throughout sapropel events also coincides with coral mound stagnation phases. This suggests that sapropel-derived processes, which originated in the eastern Mediterranean, likely affected the entire Mediterranean basin and further supports the role of LIW as a conveyor belt facilitating cold-water coral growth in the Mediterranean Sea. Overall, we show that these coral mounds yield important insights into how local changes in oceanographic conditions can influence coral mound development.