ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
Discovery of widely available abyssal rock patches reveals overlooked habitat type and prompts rethinking deep-sea biodiversity.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Near-inertial internal waves funneled into Taylor caps shape seamount tops, with implications for biodiversity in the deep ocean.Science advances · 2026Article
- Biodiversity of the abyssal and hadal zone in the Nova Canton Trough (Central Pacific Ocean; 2751-7989 m): a visual inventory.Biodiversity data journal · 2026Article
- High Connectivity at Abyssal Depths: Genomic and Proteomic Insights Into Population Structure of the Pan-Atlantic Deep-Sea BivalveEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- Backward swimming in elongated-bodied abyssal demersal fishes: Synaphobranchidae, Macrouridae, and Ophidiidae.Journal of fish biology · 2025Article
- Unveiling ophiuroid biodiversity across North Atlantic habitats via an integrative perspective.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- Polymetallic nodules are essential for food-web integrity of a prospective deep-seabed mining area in Pacific abyssal plains.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- The heterogeneous abyss.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
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Abstract
Habitat heterogeneity and species diversity are often linked. On the deep seafloor, sediment variability and hard-substrate availability influence geographic patterns of species richness and turnover. The assumption of a generally homogeneous, sedimented abyssal seafloor is at odds with the fact that the faunal diversity in some abyssal regions exceeds that of shallow-water environments. Here we show, using a ground-truthed analysis of multibeam sonar data, that the deep seafloor may be much rockier than previously assumed. A combination of bathymetry data, ruggedness, and backscatter from a trans-Atlantic corridor along the Vema Fracture Zone, covering crustal ages from 0 to 100 Ma, show rock exposures occurring at all crustal ages. Extrapolating to the whole Atlantic, over 260,000 km
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