Ecology of the Deep Sea Floor

Recognizing the great technical and statistical difficulties of obtaining adequate information on the deep-sea benthic ecosystem, the WG will draft a critical review of the present state-of-the-art clearly identifying what would be desirable, but presently impracticable to do. The review would pay particular attention to the following:

• To make recommendations on the extent and type of information necessary to describe deep-sea benthic and benthopelagic communities to enable significant future changes, from whatever cause, to be detectable.
• To identify those areas of research in which current knowledge or technology are not adequate to enable these recommendations to be fulfilled.
• To identify those areas of research relevant to the above, which would be best tackled by international collaboration.

From this review, SCOR will be able to identify the extent to which deliverables from ecological research in the deep ocean benthic ecosystem will fall short of what is apparently demanded by current concerns for the continued health of this system.