Discovery of widely available abyssal rock patches reveals overlooked habitat type and prompts rethinking deep-sea biodiversity.

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 km2 of rock habitats potentially occur along Atlantic fracture zones alone, significantly increasing our knowledge about abyssal habitat heterogeneity. This implies that sampling campaigns need to be considerably more sophisticated than at present to capture the full deep-sea habitat heterogeneity and biodiversity.

Glacial melting: an overlooked threat to Antarctic krill.

Strandings of marine animals are relatively common in marine systems. However, the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. We observed mass strandings of krill in Antarctica that appeared to be linked to the presence of glacial meltwater. Climate-induced glacial meltwater leads to an increased occurrence of suspended particles in the sea, which is known to affect the physiology of aquatic organisms. Here, we study the effect of suspended inorganic particles on krill in relation to krill mortality events observed in Potter Cove, Antarctica, between 2003 and 2012. The experimental results showed that large quantities of lithogenic particles affected krill feeding, absorption capacity and performance after only 24 h of exposure. Negative effects were related to both the threshold concentrations and the size of the suspended particles. Analysis of the stomach contents of stranded krill showed large quantities of large particles ( > 10(6 )µm(3)), which were most likely mobilized by glacial meltwater. Ongoing climate-induced glacial melting may impact the coastal ecosystems of Antarctica that rely on krill.