An exception occurs in deep-sea hydrothermal ecosystems, where there is no sunlight.

In this way marine snow may be considered the foundation of deep-sea mesopelagic and benthic ecosystems: As sunlight cannot reach them, deep-sea organisms rely heavily on marine snow as an energy source.

He has produced a series of authoritative books on marine life, ranging from sharks to whales to deep-sea ecosystems.

Data acquired from the abyssal North Pacific and North Atlantic suggest that deep-sea ecosystems may be adversely affected by mining operations on decadal time scales.

The coalition is calling on the United Nations General Assembly to institute a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling in order to protect seamounts, cold-water corals and vulnerable deep-sea ecosystems.

For the deep-sea ecosystem, the death of a whale is the most important event.

As trawlers resort to deeper and deeper waters to fill their nets, they have begun to threaten delicate deep-sea ecosystems and the fish that inhabit them, such as the coelacanth.

Chemosynthetic environments - such as hot vents, cold seeps, mud volcanoes and sulphidic brine pools - show the highest biomass and productivity of all deep-sea ecosystems.

From destructive fishing practices and exploitation of mineral resources to pollution and litter, evidence of human impact can be found in virtually all deep-sea ecosystems.

HERMIONE aims to provide this by filling the knowledge gap about threatened deep-sea ecosystems and their current status with respect to anthropogenic impacts (e.g. litter, chemical contamination).