Bathyal zone
View article: Major impacts of climate change on deep-sea benthic ecosystems
Major impacts of climate change on deep-sea benthic ecosystems Open
The deep sea encompasses the largest ecosystems on Earth. Although poorly known, deep seafloor ecosystems provide services that are vitally important to the entire ocean and biosphere. Rising atmospheric greenhouse gases are bringing about…
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Sinking particles promote vertical connectivity in the ocean microbiome Open
Significance Prokaryotes dominate the living biomass and the biological diversity of the ocean, one of the largest ecosystems on earth. The sinking of particles is a widespread mechanism that transports materials to the deep ocean, with a …
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Eukaryotic microbes, principally fungi and labyrinthulomycetes, dominate biomass on bathypelagic marine snow Open
In the bathypelagic realm of the ocean, the role of marine snow as a carbon and energy source for the deep-sea biota and as a potential hotspot of microbial diversity and activity has not received adequate attention. Here, we collected bat…
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Diversity and Biogeography of Bathyal and Abyssal Seafloor Bacteria Open
The deep ocean floor covers more than 60% of the Earth's surface, and hosts diverse bacterial communities with important functions in carbon and nutrient cycles. The identification of key bacterial members remains a challenge and their pat…
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The enigmatic SAR202 cluster up close: shedding light on a globally distributed dark ocean lineage involved in sulfur cycling Open
The dark ocean microbiota represents the unknown majority in the global ocean waters. The SAR202 cluster belonging to the phylum Chloroflexi was the first microbial lineage discovered to specifically inhabit the aphotic realm, where they a…
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Marked changes in diversity and relative activity of picoeukaryotes with depth in the world ocean Open
Microbial eukaryotes are key components of the ocean plankton. Yet, our understanding of their community composition and activity in different water layers of the ocean is limited, particularly for picoeukaryotes (0.2–3 µm cell size). Here…
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Patterns of eukaryotic diversity from the surface to the deep-ocean sediment Open
Remote deep-ocean sediment (DOS) ecosystems are among the least explored biomes on Earth. Genomic assessments of their biodiversity have failed to separate indigenous benthic organisms from sinking plankton. Here, we compare global-scale e…
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Light penetration structures the deep acoustic scattering layers in the global ocean Open
The depth distribution of a major marine biomass component is determined by variation in water clarity.
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Genomes of Abundant and Widespread Viruses from the Deep Ocean Open
The deep sea is a massive, largely oligotrophic ecosystem, stretched over nearly 65% of the planet’s surface. Deep-sea planktonic communities are almost completely dependent upon organic carbon sinking from the productive surface, forming …
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Microbiome of the deep Lake Baikal, a unique oxic bathypelagic habitat Open
Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world. Its depth provides the only bathypelagic (> 1000 m deep) freshwater habitat on Earth and its oxic, ultra‐oligotrophic features make it a freshwater counterpart of the deep ocean. Here we have a…
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Depth-Resolved Distribution of Particle-Attached and Free-Living Bacterial Communities in the Water Column of the New Britain Trench Open
Particle-attached (PA) and free-living (FL) microorganisms play significant but different roles in mineralization of organic matter (OM) in the ocean. Currently, little is known about PA and FL microbial communities in bathyal and abyssal …
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New insights into marine group III Euryarchaeota, from dark to light Open
Marine Euryarchaeota remain among the least understood major components of marine microbial communities. Marine group II Euryarchaeota (MG-II) are more abundant in surface waters (4–20% of the total prokaryotic community), whereas marine g…
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Deep sediment resuspension and thick nepheloid layer generation by open‐ocean convection Open
The Gulf of Lions in the northwestern Mediterranean is one of the few sites around the world ocean exhibiting deep open‐ocean convection. Based on 6 year long (2009–2015) time series from a mooring in the convection region, shipborne measu…
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The Functional and Ecological Significance of Deep Diving by Large Marine Predators Open
Many large marine predators make excursions from surface waters to the deep ocean below 200 m. Moreover, the ability to access meso- and bathypelagic habitats has evolved independently across marine mammals, reptiles, birds, teleost fishes…
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Factors affecting the vertical distribution of eggs Open
The spatial distribution of eggs and larvae is a function of the properties of the ambient water (the density, current, and turbulent diffusion) and of the physical properties of the eggs (the buoyancy and dimension). Study of the vertical…
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Stable isotope analysis of micronekton around Hawaii reveals suspended particles are an important nutritional source in the lower mesopelagic and upper bathypelagic zones Open
Several studies have found that the respiratory demand for carbon by the mesopelagic community exceeds carbon supply through the particulate sinking flux by up to two to three orders of magnitude, suggesting that mesopelagic communities re…
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Diversity and community composition of particle‐associated and free‐living bacteria in mesopelagic and bathypelagic Southern Ocean water masses: Evidence of dispersal limitation in the Bransfield Strait Open
The Southern Ocean constitutes about 10% of the global oceans' volume and is characterized by high primary production. Particulate organic matter (POM) is exported from the photic zone to the deep ocean and sustains life of particle associ…
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Geographic Distribution of Archaeal Ammonia Oxidizing Ecotypes in the Atlantic Ocean Open
In marine ecosystems, Thaumarchaeota are most likely the major ammonia oxidizers. While ammonia concentrations vary by about two orders of magnitude in the oceanic water column, archaeal ammonia oxidizers (AOA) vary by only one order of ma…
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Vertical stratification of environmental <span>DNA</span> in the open ocean captures ecological patterns and behavior of deep‐sea fishes Open
Establishing the foundations for a sustainable use of deep‐sea resources relies on increasing knowledge on this inaccessible ecosystem, which is challenging with traditional methods. The analysis of environmental DNA (eDNA) emerges as an a…
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Environmental DNA surveys detect distinct metazoan communities across abyssal plains and seamounts in the western Clarion Clipperton Zone Open
The deep seafloor serves as a reservoir of biodiversity in the global ocean, with >80% of invertebrates at abyssal depths still undescribed. These diverse and remote deep‐sea communities are critically under‐sampled and increasingly threat…
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Extreme diving in mammals: first estimates of behavioural aerobic dive limits in Cuvier's beaked whales Open
We analysed 3680 dives from 23 satellite-linked tags deployed on Cuvier's beaked whales to assess the relationship between long duration dives and inter-deep dive intervals and to estimate aerobic dive limit (ADL). The median duration of p…
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<i>Isidella elongata</i> (Cnidaria: Alcyonacea) facies in the western Mediterranean Sea: visual surveys and descriptions of its ecological role Open
Isidella elongata is a candelabrum-shaped alcyonacean forming important facies on the bathyal muddy bottoms of the Mediterranean Sea, currently considered a sensitive habitat and heavily impacted by deep-sea fisheries. Until a few decades …
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Bryozoan diversity in the Mediterranean Sea: an update Open
This paper provides a current view of the bryozoan biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea updating the checklist by Rosso (2003). Bryozoans presently living in the Mediterranean increase to 556 species, 212 genera and 93 families. Cheilosto…
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Microbial Eukaryote Diversity and Activity in the Water Column of the South China Sea Based on DNA and RNA High Throughput Sequencing Open
To study the diversity and metabolic activity of microbial eukaryotes in the water column of the South China Sea, genomic DNA and RNA were co-extracted from samples collected down to bathyal depth at two sites. V9 regions of both SSU rRNA …
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Major imprint of surface plankton on deep ocean prokaryotic structure and activity Open
Deep ocean microbial communities rely on the organic carbon produced in the sunlit ocean, yet it remains unknown whether surface processes determine the assembly and function of bathypelagic prokaryotes to a larger extent than deep‐sea phy…
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Vertical gradients in species richness and community composition across the twilight zone in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre Open
Although metazoan animals in the mesopelagic zone play critical roles in deep pelagic food webs and in the attenuation of carbon in midwaters, the diversity of these assemblages is not fully known. A metabarcoding survey of mesozooplankton…
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Metagenomic Analysis of the Diversity of DNA Viruses in the Surface and Deep Sea of the South China Sea Open
A metagenomic analysis of the viral community from five surface and five deep sea water (>2000 m below the surface, mbs) samples collected from the central basin of the South China Sea and adjacent Northwest Pacific Ocean during July-Augus…
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Trophic ecology, habitat, and migratory behaviour of the viperfish Chauliodus sloani reveal a key mesopelagic player Open
Mesopelagic fishes are numerically the most important vertebrate group of all world’s oceans. While these species are increasingly threatened by anthropogenic activities, basic biological knowledge is still lacking. For instance, major unc…
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Niche Differentiation of Aerobic and Anaerobic Ammonia Oxidizers in a High Latitude Deep Oxygen Minimum Zone Open
To elucidate the potential for nitrification and denitrification processes in a high latitude deep oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) we determined the abundance and community composition of the main microbial players in the aerobic and anaerobic (…
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Eukaryotic Biodiversity and Spatial Patterns in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone and Other Abyssal Regions: Insights From Sediment DNA and RNA Metabarcoding Open
The abyssal seafloor is a mosaic of highly diverse habitats that represent the least known marine ecosystems on Earth. Some regions enriched in natural resources, such as polymetallic nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), attract m…