Cold-water corals have been widely collected in the Azores region, ranging from historic expeditions led by Prince Albert I of Monaco in the early 1900s to recent oceanographic cruises. Yet most of their diversity remains hidden in unexplored museum collections. FAM project is now exploring this hidden diversity. This work is already revealing cold-water coral species new to science. Taxonomic analyses of specimens from the Natural History Museums of Paris, Monaco, and Frankfurt are underway using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). In parallel, laboratory protocols for DNA extractions of old and poorly preserved specimens, including type material, have been optimized with successful results. Furthermore, DNA libraries for genome skimming were constructed and sequenced on an Illumina Novaseq platform. The new molecular data is being integrated into large-scale phylogenomic trees, clarifying species boundaries and reconstructing the evolutionary relationships of Azorean octocoral and black coral species, across the North Atlantic deep seafloor. At a time of escalating biodiversity loss, this project represents an urgent step toward preserving the Azores’ deep-sea ecosystems and their invaluable contributions to marine life and human well-being.

Cold-water corals have been widely collected in the Azores region, ranging from historic expeditions led by Prince Albert I of Monaco in the early 1900s to recent oceanographic cruises. Yet most of their diversity remains hidden in unexplored museum collections. FAM project is now exploring this hidden diversity. This work is already revealing cold-water coral species new to science. Taxonomic analyses of specimens from the Natural History Museums of Paris, Monaco, and Frankfurt are underway using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). In parallel, laboratory protocols for DNA extractions of old and poorly preserved specimens, including type material, have been optimized with successful results. Furthermore, DNA libraries for genome skimming were constructed and sequenced on an Illumina Novaseq platform. The new molecular data is being integrated into large-scale phylogenomic trees, clarifying species boundaries and reconstructing the evolutionary relationships of Azorean octocoral and black coral species, across the North Atlantic deep seafloor. At a time of escalating biodiversity loss, this project represents an urgent step toward preserving the Azores’ deep-sea ecosystems and their invaluable contributions to marine life and human well-being.