IMIS

The database records fall into two time periods, those from 1874 to 1920, and from 1950 to 2001. A total of 25 species in 10 families are so far known from the northeastern U.S. Most of these species are common in deeper waters of the continental shelf, with a few being restricted to the canyons and other slope environments. A comparison of western and eastern North Atlantic records indicates there is little similarity between the regions. In the cold temperate to boreal part of the region there is about 41% similarity of the “stoloniferous” and “massive body” soft coral species, but only about 28% similarity amongst all the “gorgonian” species. In the warm temperate part of the region the similarity for all groups is less than 10%. Deep water alcyonaceans are strongly impacted by bottom fishing gear so it is likely that modern distributional records will not be exactly similar to those from deep in the past.