![]() ![]() By releasing massive amounts of mucus and waste, or sinking to the bottom themselves, jellies alone sequester an estimated 2 billion metric tons of carbon to the ocean’s depths each year, nearly equivalent to the amount of carbon produced by one third of U.S. Though many of them are small, they play an outsized role in transferring carbon and other nutrients from the ocean’s upper layers to the seafloor.įar outnumbering all of the fish in the sea, most jellies are voracious predators, eating anything they can catch. Gelatinous animals like siphonophores and medusae are extremely abundant in the open waters of the deep sea. “But if we're looking for siphonophores and other jellies, we're happy as clams.” “We might drive our ROV around for an hour or two without seeing any of the target animals we're looking for,” said Osborn. The midnight zone - though deeper and darker than what lies above - still harbors millions of organisms, many of them gelatinous. Twilight dims to midnight when every photon of sunlight disappears around 3,000 feet below the surface. “It's amazing how much of the livable space on this planet is in total darkness.” “When we send cameras down there, the lights are almost always turned on, so we forget how dark it really is,” said Allen Collins, a zoologist at NOAA Fisheries and curator of gelatinous zooplankton at the Museum. It is intensely cold, averaging 4 degrees Celsius, and only 1% of the sun’s light makes it down here. There’s nothing to hide behind and most animals here will never touch a solid surface. Even in the twilight zone, the midwater’s top layer, the surrounding pressure is crushing. With our human senses, surviving down here is unfathomable. For example, the fish living in the midwater, like this dragonfish, are estimated to be ten times more abundant than all commercially fished species combined.īeneath the sunlight zone - or the top 600 feet of the ocean where we trawl for fish, SCUBA dive and conduct most marine research - blue quickly fades to black and the midwater begins. The midwater is home to billions upon billions of organisms, contrary to the popular belief that most of the open ocean is empty. “If we want the ocean to keep functioning and providing us with essential environmental services, there needs to be a diverse community of animals down there, whether we understand them or not,” said Osborn. Few people - most of them scientists like Osborn - have directly witnessed the midwater’s menagerie through the windows of deep-diving submersibles, making it difficult to garner support for conservation and research.Īnd yet, each time we descend into the depths of the ocean, we discover new species, new medical and tech applications and ecological connections beyond our imagination. ![]() Unlike rain forests, the deep sea is extremely difficult for humans to study, let alone travel to. ![]() “It's not a couple of jellies here and there, it's millions and billions of animals, and they're all just as interesting as anything we have up here.” “There are millions of animals down there, no matter where you go,” said Karen Osborn, a zoologist and curator of marine worms and crustaceans at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. With more than a billion cubic kilometers of living space, this section of the ocean between the surface and the seafloor holds more species, animal biomass and individual organisms than anywhere else on the planet. This is what it’s like to explore the ocean’s midwater - the largest and least understood ecosystem on Earth. As you clamber through the trees, the creatures you encounter are bizarre and infinitely better at navigating the darkness, though most of them flee from your light’s bright beam before you can catch a glimpse. There are no trails, no landmarks and no destinations. Imagine climbing through a remote rain forest in the dead of night with nothing but a flashlight to guide your way. ![]() The cold, dark waters between the surface and the seafloor are filled with billions of creatures with untold importance to the entire marine ecosystem. Contrary to popular belief, the open ocean is not just empty space with a few animals here and there. ![]()
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