Red listed cold-water corals in Icelandic waters

The IUCN Red List of Cold-Water Corals has recently come into effect, and the evaluated species are now listed on the IUCN Red List website, here.

The status of selected cold-water corals was valuated based on the Red List classification, in collaboration with participants of a workshop on cold-water coral identification and analysis that took place two years ago at the Sandgerði Knowledge Centre. The event was attended by Icelandic and international experts and students.

Field of sea-pens off the coast of South Iceland 

What is a Red list

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN Red List) is the most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species. The Red list provides an overview of organisms that have been evaluated in a specific country, region or globally. Species are arranged into different risk categories depending on how serious the threats are. IUCN publishes the following threat categories: Critically Endangered (CE), Endangered (EN), Vulnerable (VU), Near Threatened (NT), Least Concern (LC), and Data Deficient (DD). In addition, there are categories for extinct species and species that are extinct in the wild.

Coral reef in Háfadjúp 

The Red Listing of cold-water corals has not been conducted before and therefore represents an initial effort. An expert from the IUCN Red List team was on site and led the assessment process based on the IUCN criteria. Prior to the meeting, participants had completed a course on the IUCN Red List methodology. In total, 22 species of coral native to the North Atlantic were assessed, 16 of which are found in the Icelandic waters. Earlier this year, an article reviewing this work, including methods and results was published in the scientific journal Marine Biodiversity, which can be accessed here.

Some of these species are globally widespread, however human impacts have lead to a population decline of more than 30% e compared to recent standards. The main threats are related to fishing impacting the benthic zone. Eight species were assessed as Near Threatened (NT), ten species were assessed as Least Concern (LC) and for three species as Data Deficient (DD) due to insufficient information. One species, Desmophyllum pertusum, was assessed as Globally Vulnerable.

Cold-water coral workshop in Sandgerði, SW Iceland.

There are over 70 species of coral found in Icelandic waters. Most occur deep offshore areas, particularly - south of the country and in the Denmark Strait (Grænlandssund). Sea pens, black corals, stony corals, gorgonian corals and soft corals are collective names for the groups to which these species belong.

Group photo taken outside the Sandgerði Knowledge Center

The workshop held at the Sandgerði Knowledge Centre covered methods for identifying corals to species. Most of the specimens used came from the collection of the scientific museum housed at the Natural Science Institute of Iceland with a large portion originating from the BIOICE project, that took place from 1994-2004. The group focused on identifying specimens and examining their distribution.

The course was supervised by Dr. Saskia Brix, from the Senckenberg Research Center in Germany, which sponsored the event. Dr. Brix has led several research expeditions in Iceland through the ICEAge project under Senckenberg. Representatives from the Natural Science Institute of Iceland and the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute attended the workshoð and assisted in its preparation. In addition, participants came from various countries. The species identification was taught by Catherine McFadden, one of the leading experts on Octocorallia.