Mollicutes

commercial species a couple of years ago. The device uses strobe lights to take nighttime visual images of the reef. The results of these new studies reveal the deep-water reefs to have nearly 100 per cent living coral cover. Until recently, little information was available on the structure and composition of the deeper coral reefs due to their depths at 30 to 75 metres, which are beyond the safe range of Scuba diving, and their location sometimes 15 kilometres from land. Two reef areas, the Hind Bank Marine Conservation District and the South Drop were the first to be surveyed, led by the WHOI scientist Hanumant Singh and colleagues from the Institute and at the University of Puerto Rico. Researchers from the University of the Virgin Islands and the Caribbean Fishery Management Council (CFMC) also helped with the study. Hind Bank Marine Conservation District was the first zone in US federal waters to be closed to commercial fishing, having been a major fishing ground for years. But in 1999, on the recommendation of fishermen, scientists and government officials, commercial activity was halted to protect both the reef and the red hind, a type of grouper, which is one of the most valuable commercial fish in the Caribbean and still fished in some areas. Graciela Garcia-Moliner of the CFMC scientific staff said that until these new surveys had got under way, “We did not know what kind of corals we have, how healthy they are, how deep the reefs extend or how large the reefs actually are and what marine life lives there because no one has ever seen them. ” Wider ranging annual studies of these newly illuminated reefs are now planned. Magazine R483