Report | September 3, 2015

Preliminary data on deep-sea benthic habitats documented in four macaronesian seamounts

Seamounts are considered biodiversity hotspots and the Macaronesian region hosts over one hundred of them. However, biological information on these underwater elevations remains scarce. In 2014, Oceana launched an at-sea campaign aimed at identifying and describing deep-sea benthic communities that inhabit several Macaronesian slopes and remote seamounts. As a preliminary outcome, the presence of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs) was documented in all of the sampling sites. A description of the main benthic communities associated with specific depths and substrata was completed as a result of this work.