There have been various recent papers linking internal waves/tides with cold water coral distribution and abundance. This is the first one, to the best of our knowledge, that approaches the question from a global context. The focus on biophysical interaction means that it may be of particular interest to the broad geoscience community.

This paper, using pre-storm, immediate post-storm and recovery data, quantifies seafloor elevation and volume change within the Looe Key Reef system of the Florida Keys Reef Tract over a 2.5-year period from 2016–2019 and to examine impacts from category-4 Hurricane Irma and post-storm re-equilibration of seafloor sediments. The study highlights the need to data collected over seasonal and annual time periods to improve characterization and understanding of short-term (event-driven, seasonal, interannual) and long-term (decadal to multi-decadal) rates and processes of seafloor change and help guide benthic habitat post-storm recovery and restoration efforts in topographically complex coral reef systems.