Carla Zilberberg (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro)
Corals are responsible for the construction of two of the most diverse marine ecosystems in the world, shallow and deep-water corals reefs. As with most ecosystems world-wide they have been suffering from anthropogenic impacts, such as pollution, fishing activities and global climate changes. One of the important evolutionary characteristics conferring organisms’ population resilience is the high levels of genetic diversity, which can be maintained by gene flow among population or metapopulations. Brazil has the only true shallow water coral reef in the South Atlantic Ocean, in addition to over 3,000 km of shallow water coral habitats. Moreover, deep water coral reefs are present along the Southeastern region of Brazil, at Santos, Campos and Espirito Santo’s basins, a region with extensive oil and gas exploration, thus, prone to suffer with local impacts. Studies of marine population connectivity in the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean are scarce compared to the rest of the world, particularly for corals and their associated organisms. In this presentation, I will talk about the state of the art of shallow and deep-water corals’ connectivity studies in the Southwestern Atlantic. Knowledge of gene flow patterns, including migration directions and source and sink dynamics can lead to better conservation strategies and future predictions of the effect of anthropogenic impacts on coral ecosystems in the Southern Atlantic Ocean.