Coral images collected to assess the effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill and natural seepage, Gulf of Mexico, DSV Ocean Inspector and MSV Ocean Intervention II cruises, from 2016-09-17 to 2016-10-05 and from 2017-06-09 to 2017-06-17

Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Inputs to the Gulf of Mexico (ECOGIG II) consortia cruises to monitor corals around Macondo and at reference sites. These data were also used to evaluate the effect of natural seepage on coral health and growth as part of the following study:

We focused on Callogorgia delta and Paramuricea sp. type B3 living near and far from visual signs of currently active seepage at five sites in the deep Gulf of Mexico. We tested whether these corals rely on chemosynthetically-derived food in seep habitats and how the proximity to cold seeps may influence; i) coral colony traits (i.e., health status, growth rate, regrowth from injuries and branch loss) and associated epifauna, ii) associated microbiome, and iii) host transcriptomes. This dataset includes images of coral colonies obtained from 2017-06-09 to 2017-06-17 from the Ocean Intervention II and from 2016-09-17 to 2016-10-05 aboard the Ocean Inspector.

Also included are summary tables of growth rates, stable isotopes, associated epifauna and microbiome, and presence of host transcriptomes. Reference images from 2015 (EV Nautilus cruises NA057 and NA058) are available in related dataset R4.x268.186:0001 (doi:10.7266/N7CF9NH9). Stable isotope measurements of coral tissue obtained on the same cruises are available in R4.x268.000:0124 (doi:10.7266/RYMQTDQ9).

This dataset supports the publication Osman, E. O., Vohsen, S. A., Girard, F., Cruz, R., Glickman, O., et al. (2022). Capacity of deep-sea corals to obtain nutrition from cold seeps aligned with microbiome reorganization. Global Change Biology, 00, 1–17.