PLOS ONE RESEARCH ARTICLE Deep coral habitats of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska 1 1,2 3,4 EÂ lise C. HartillID *, Rhian G. Waller , Peter J. Auster 1 Darling Marine Center, School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Walpole, Maine United States of America, 2 Sven LoveÂn Centre, TjaÈrnoÈ, University of Gothenburg, StroÈmstad, Sweden, 3 Department of Marine Sciences, University of Connecticut, Groton, Connecticut, United States of America, 4 Mystic Aquarium±Sea Research Foundation, Mystic, Connecticut, United States of America a1111111111 *
[email protected] a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 Abstract a1111111111 Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (GBNPP) in Southeast Alaska is a system of glaci- ated fjords with a unique and recent history of deglaciation. As such, it can serve as a natural laboratory for studying patterns of distribution in marine communities with proximity to gla- cial influence. In order to examine the changes in fjord-based coral communities, underwa- OPEN ACCESS ter photo-quadrats were collected during multipurpose dives with a remotely operated Citation: Hartill EÂC, Waller RG, Auster PJ (2020) Deep coral habitats of Glacier Bay National Park vehicle (ROV) in March of 2016. Ten sites were chosen to represent the geochronological and Preserve, Alaska. PLoS ONE 15(8): e0236945. and oceanographic gradients present in GBNPP. Each site was surveyed vertically between https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0236945 100 and 420 meters depth and photo-quadrats were extracted from the video strip transects Editor: Andrew Davies, University of Rhode Island, for analysis. The ROV was equipped with onboard CTD which recorded environmental data UNITED STATES (temperature and salinity), in order to confirm the uniformity of these characteristics at depth Received: February 26, 2020 across the fjords.