ArticleScientific reports2021
Polymetallic nodules are essential for food-web integrity of a prospective deep-seabed mining area in Pacific abyssal plains.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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7 citing papers in PubMed, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- Multi-Omic Assessment of Microbial Communities and Their Polyketide Biosynthetic Potential Across Abyssal Sediments.Environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Review and Integrated Framework for Deep-Sea Mineral Resources, Ecological Influence, and Future Development.International journal of microbiology · 2026Review
- Unveiling the significance of prokaryotic composition from ferromanganese crusts regarding the interlink between cobalt and vitamin BFrontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Two new species ofZooKeys · 2025Article
- Habitat types and megabenthos composition from three sponge-dominated high-Arctic seamounts.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Ethical opportunities in deep-sea collection of polymetallic nodules from the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.Integrated environmental assessment and management · 2022Article
- Restoration experiments in polymetallic nodule areas.Integrated environmental assessment and management · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Polymetallic nodule fields provide hard substrate for sessile organisms on the abyssal seafloor between 3000 and 6000 m water depth. Deep-seabed mining targets these mineral-rich nodules and will likely modify the consumer-resource (trophic) and substrate-providing (non-trophic) interactions within the abyssal food web. However, the importance of nodules and their associated sessile fauna in supporting food-web integrity remains unclear. Here, we use seafloor imagery and published literature to develop highly-resolved trophic and non-trophic interaction webs for the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCZ, central Pacific Ocean) and the Peru Basin (PB, South-East Pacific Ocean) and to assess how nodule removal may modify these networks. The CCZ interaction web included 1028 compartments connected with 59,793 links and the PB interaction web consisted of 342 compartments and 8044 links. We show that knock-down effects of nodule removal resulted in a 17.9% (CCZ) to 20.8% (PB) loss of all taxa and 22.8% (PB) to 30.6% (CCZ) loss of network links. Subsequent analysis identified stalked glass sponges living attached to the nodules as key structural species that supported a high diversity of associated fauna. We conclude that polymetallic nodules are critical for food-web integrity and that their absence will likely result in reduced local benthic biodiversity.
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