October 5, 2016 — HONOLULU — Coral reefs in Hawaii’s oceanic twilight zone, where light still penetrates and photosynthesis occurs, are abundant and host a wide variety of life, a new study shows.
A paper published Tuesday in the journal PeerJ revealed that some of these ecosystems off the Hawaiian archipelago, particularly an area off Maui, are the most extensive deep-water reefs ever recorded.
The ecosystems, found in waters from 100 to 500 feet deep, host more than twice the amount of unique Hawaiian fish species as their shallow-water counterparts, and they are much more extensive than previously known.
“What is unique about this study is how vast and dense the coral cover is,” Richard Pyle, a Bishop Museum researcher and lead author of the publication, told The Associated Press.