Curaçao, Dutch Caribbean, is home to three species of gall crabs belonging to Cryptochiridae, a family obligatorily associated with a wide range of scleractinian host species. Gall crabs are reliant on their host coral; females are sedentary and never leave their dwelling (van der Meij 2014a). One of the three Atlantic gall crab species is Opecarcinus hypostegus (Shaw and Hopkins, 1977), which inhabits corals of the genus Agaricia. Corals of this genus are abundant in the photic zone (<30 m), but also in the mesophotic zone (30–150 m), where they predominantly belong to Agaricia grahamae Wells, 1973 and Agaricia lamarcki Milne-Edwards and Haime, 1851. The latter was found to be most abundant at depths of 25–60 m (Bongaerts et al. 2013).

Depth range
25- 60 m

Mesophotic “mentions”
5 x (total of 517 words)

Classification
* Presents original data
* Focused on 'mesophotic' depth range
* Focused on 'mesophotic coral ecosystem'

Fields
Ecology
Biodiversity

Focusgroups
Crustacea
Scleractinia (Hard Corals)

Locations
Curaçao

Platforms
Manned Submersible