Nearly five years of studying the deep Atlantic Ocean in unprecedented detail has revealed 12 species new to science.
The sea mosses, mollusks and corals had escaped discovery because the seabed is so unexplored, scientists say.
Researchers warn that the newly discovered animals could already be threatened by climate change.
Carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean makes it more acidic, which corrodes coral skeletons in particular.
The concerned scientists stressed that it was “not too late to protect these special species” and the important habitats they inhabit.
Some important Atlantic discoveries from the mission:
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New Species: “At least” 12 new deep-sea species. The team also found about 35 new records of species in areas where they were previously unknown
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Climate change: Warming, acidification and declining ocean food availability will combine to significantly shift and reduce the availability of suitable habitats for deep-sea species by 2100
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Hydrothermal vents: Scientists discovered an area of these hot springs on the seafloor in the Azores. Hydrothermal fields are important areas of relatively high biological productivity that house complex communities in the middle of the vast deep ocean
Cities of the deep
As Prof. George Wolff, an ocean chemist from the University of Liverpool involved in the project, noted, “We can still say that we have better maps of the surface of the Moon and Mars than of the sea floor.”
“So when you go to the deep ocean, you find something new – not just individual species but entire ecosystems.”
Prof Murray Roberts from the University of Edinburgh led the Atlas project, as it is called. He told BBC News that nearly five years of exploration and research had revealed some “special spots” in the ocean and worked out “how they tick.”
“We found entire communities formed by sponges or deep-sea corals that make up the cities of the deep sea,” he explained. “They support life. So really important fish use these places as spawning grounds.
“If those cities are damaged by destructive human use, those fish will have nowhere to spawn and the function of those entire ecosystems will be lost for future generations.
“It’s like understanding that the rainforest is an important place for terrestrial biodiversity; the same is true of the deep sea – there are important places that need to be protected and, crucially, they are all connected.”
Ocean currents slow down
The project involved researchers from 13 countries around the Atlantic Ocean – combining ocean chemistry and physics and biological discovery to find out how the ocean environment is changing as the world warms and as humans exploit more of the deep sea for fishing and mineral resources. extraction.
By studying ocean currents and fossil deposits on the seafloor, it has been found that the major currents in the North Atlantic have slowed dramatically in response to climate change.
“The implications of that are complicated, but potentially the connections between ecosystems are diminished,” explained Prof. Roberts, because ocean currents are the highways connecting different habitats in the vastness of the deep ocean.
Out of sight
“The value of all this knowledge is that it allows us to understand what we could lose,” said Prof. Claire Armstrong, a natural resources economist from the University of Tromsø.
“The deep ocean can be so out of sight and out of mind that we are not really aware of what we are doing with its environment and the consequences of what we are doing.”
With a growing world population, increasing pollution and emerging areas of commercial activity in the deep sea, including the search for medically and industrially useful products, marine scientists say it is vital to fill the gaps in our ocean knowledge.
The ocean is not an endless resource, added Prof. Armstrong. “Preserving and knowing what we may need in the future is really very difficult.”
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