Dr. Zoleka Filander-Palmer 

Cold-water corals are deep-sea animals that build important habitats for many other marine species, even though they live far from sunlight in cold, dark waters. In the Southern hemisphere —particularly around places like the Southwestern Indian Ocean—these corals remain poorly studied. This project focuses on a group called Dendrophylliidae, using new coral samples collected during an Indian Ocean 2024 expedition, along with older samples from South Africa and Senckenberg. By comparing these corals, the study will explore how their shapes and features change depending on the environment and whether these differences indicate distinct species. To do this, the project will use tools like CT scanning in conjunction with DNA analysis. The findings will help update global species databases, improve our understanding of deep-sea coral diversity, and support conservation planning in areas with little existing information. Such results will therefore support global conservation and management efforts, in light of the multilayered unnatural pressures faced by the ocean environment.