Background to the Voyage
Background to the Voyage
Previous CenSeam research voyages have focused on seamounts alone, however, to fully understand seamount communities it is vital that we understand adjacent habitat types. Hydrothermal vents, canyons, and cold seeps are common habitats in the New Zealand region, yet little is known about their biodiversity, ecology, or how vulnerable they might be to human activities. Infact our understanding of benthic community composition and structure of these vulnerable habitats is poorer than for seamounts.
In the New Zealand EEZ all of these deep-sea habitats occur in close proximity presenting the fortunate opportunity of being able to compare across habitats in close proximity. This proximity affords the potential for making direct comparisons between habitats without the confounding factor of spatial separation which has undermined such comparisons in other parts of the world.
On this (and other future voyages) we will be testing the following hypotheses:
(1) The seabed communities of deep-sea habitats such as seamounts, vents, canyons and seeps are fundamentally different from each other and from those found on the continental slope;
(2) The communities of these habitats are more vulnerable to human disturbance (e.g., because of high longevity, slow growth rates, limited reproductive capacity, localised distributions, limited dispersal capabilities) than for general slope environments;
(3) The effects of fishing and other human activities are more severe than for general slope environments (e.g., because of differences in disturbance characteristics—high density fishing or localised mining).