Mining and petroleum industries are exploring resources in deep seafloor environments. Lease areas are often spatially aggregated and continuous over hundreds to thousands of kilometers. Sustainable development of these resources requires an understanding of the patterns of biodiversity at similar scales, yet these data are rarely available for the deep sea. Here, we compare biodiversity metrics and assemblage composition of epibenthic megafaunal samples from deep-sea benthic habitats from the Great Australian Bight (GAB), a petroleum exploration zone off southern Australia, to similar environments off eastern Australia.
Regional-scale patterns of deep seafloor biodiversity for conservation assessment
Year: 2020
