Conservation of dark habitats

Continental shelf and margins contains a wide variety of habitats that have traditionally remained poorly explored because of their inaccessibility to humans and low-light conditions. This is the case of marine caves, coralligenous outcrops, sponge grounds, maërl beds, or gorgonian and black coral gardens, among others. These are habitats with high ecological and economical relevance but poorly resilient to disturbance events due to multiple factors; high temporal stability of the environmental conditions, slow growth rates, and late maturity of their assemblages, etc. Threats to the biodiversity and functioning of dark habitats encompass both local and regional factors, including climate change, coastal urbanization and pollution, invasive species, harvesting or tourism, among many others. The main strategies and actions toward the conservation and management of dark habitats encompass its legal protection and regulation of commercial activities and the development of monitoring tools and active ecological restoration approaches. Increasing our ecological and biological knowledge of this habitats, as well as the effectiveness of conservation initiatives, will largely rely upon the application of technical advances to the study of these habitats.