Deep-sea Benthic Communities: Biogeographic Relationships and Spatial
Scales of Connectivity
Baban Ingole,
National Institute of Oceanography,
Dona Paula, Goa-403004, INDIA
There are potentially more than 100,000 large seamounts in the worlds oceans.
However, despite this, very few have been studied, and biological samples are
known from less than 500. Some areas have been relatively well surveyed, in
particular regions of the southwestern, eastern, and northern Pacific Ocean, and
sectors of the North Atlantic. Large areas of some oceans remain relatively
unexplored, and the Indian Ocean is one those where very little is known about
the biodiversity on seamounts. Although, abyssal fauna of the Indian Ocean is
relatively better known.
Deep-sea seamounts provide benthic habitat in otherwise pelagic realms.
Distance, physical oceanography, and life history strategies of seamount fauna
combine to make seamounts potential “islands in the sea”, with unique faunas.
These submerged islands provide model systems to study environmental
interactions, evolution, endemism, and speciation in the marine environment, just
as emergent oceanic islands have been used to study these processes in the
terrestrial environment. One of the pressing questions on seamounts is the
spatial scales of community structure and population connectivity. A recent study
compared chains of seamounts in the Southwest Pacific and found just 20%
overlap in species between chains separated by 1000 km. Because of
incomparable sampling methods used in existing seamount studies, this pattern
has not been evaluated elsewhere.
Although some research proposals to investigate the deep-sea benthic
biodiversity of the Indian Ocean submitted under the Coml’s banner are in
consideration, dedicated research programme to investigate the biodiversity of
the Indian Ocean is yet to initiate.
In the present communication, ongoing deep-sea biological activities are
discussed along with the proposed international participation as well as possible
Indian participation in the other ongoing international programs.