News
It is often stated that we know more about the surface of the moon than the depth of our ocean. The deep-sea is still largely undiscovered and understudied due to the challenges in venturing to the ocean depths. The extremely high pressure, extreme temperatures and lack of light make it near impossible for humans to comprehensively study the marine environments of the deep-sea. The organisms inhabiting these vast environments have evolved to adapt to these humanly ‘extreme’ conditions, but unfortunately, a large proportion of the biodiversity from the deep-sea remains a mystery. Since the very first deep-sea explorations in the 1870’s, researchers and scientists have designed and developed advanced and specialized deep-sea equipment to overcome the challenges of exploring the expansive, dynamic and ever-changing conditions of the deep-sea. Deep-sea equipment is now able to collect samples and capture photographs along with various other environmental information of the deep-sea. These are generally categorised by function either as observation equipment, samplers, simulation systems or submersibles. The latter include equipment such as human occupied vehicles (HOVs), remote operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The role, advantages and limitations of each of this equipment is discussed and analysed in this paper. Geographical distribution data of deep-sea species (occurring below 1000 m) were extracted from OBIS and WoRMS, after which the discovery of these species was compared to the current global distribution of deep-sea equipment. It became clear that deep-sea species were more frequently discovered in the sea areas governed by maritime power with powerful equipment (figure). This study evaluates the historical and modern deep-sea equipment suitable to explore life in these extreme environments. The study describes in detail, the ecosystems discovered and the equipment demanded for their discovery. Additionally, authors analysed the importance of the development of equipment in promoting biological research of the deep-sea. Based on their findings, authors proposed the challenges, prospects and future implications for historical and current equipment used for exploration of life in extreme environments.
Liang, J., Feng, J. C., Zhang, S., Cai, Y., Yang, Z., Ni, T., & Yang, H. Y. 2021. Role of deep-sea equipment in promoting the forefront of studies on life in extreme environments. Iscience, 24(11), 103299.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.103299