ENVS 2004 Ocean Science

Deep Sea Biology 1

Lecture Outline
• Recap from previous lecture
• Deep Sea Biology
iPRS time
• Which of the following is NOT an equipment used to collect marine
sediments?
1. piston core
2. gravity core
3. suction core
4. van Veen grab
5. box core
iPRS Time
Which of the following sediment particles has the largest grain size?

1. = -6
2. =6
3.  =-2
4. 600 µm
5. 0.6 mm
Definition of ‘Deep-Sea’

• Epipelagic (0-200 m) photic zone

• Mesopelagic (200 - 1000 m) disphotic
• Bathypelagic (1000 - 4000 m) aphotic
• Abyssalpelagic (4000 - 6000 m)
• Hadalpelagic (6000 - 11,000 m)

The term “deep sea” is therefore not a precise one:

• it can mean >200 m (biologists), or >1000 m (oceanographers);
• In any case, no primary production from photosynthesis occurs.
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Continental shelf Biomass Light Temperature (°C)Depth
0 10 20 (m)
Epipelagic Photic
200
Permanent
Mesopelagic Disphotic thermocline
1000
Aphotic

Bathypelagic 2000

Bathyal
3000

Abyssopelagic
4000

Abyssal
Hadal
Hadalpelagic
>6000

Major Zones of the Oceans 6

Redrawn by C. Yau
Of the 71% of the planet’s surface that is covered in water, ~85% is deep
sea – the largest single habitat on Earth, but it remains relatively poorly
studied.

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Dark blue and purple areas = deep-sea
 The Physical Environment of the
Deep-sea
1. Temperature
• Temperatures below the permanent thermocline ( between 200-
1000 m depth) remain relatively constant and low throughout the
world’s oceans, ranging from about 4°C - 2°C.

Main exceptions: Mediterranean Sea ~13°C (at 5000 m)

Red Sea 21°C at 2000 m
Antarctic Ocean reaches –1.9°C
2. Salinity
• Salinity stays very constant at 34.8 to 34.6 psu below the permanent
thermocline (again, exceptions being Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea).
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Deep-sea Permanent Thermocline

Seasonal changes occur

Permanent thermocline 200-
1000 m = zone of greatest
temperature change

Cold, relatively isothermal

water of constant, low
temperature.
No seasonal changes.

Constant, ~4-2°C
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© 2001 Benjamin Cummings, Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
3. Hydrostatic Pressure
• Pressure increases constantly by 1 atmosphere per 10 m increase in
depth, or 1 kg cm-2.
• Pressure (plus low temperatures) affects biochemistry and metabolism,
e.g. enzyme systems, protein synthesis, and CaCO3 deposition
• Impacts of pressure are less for organisms lacking gas-filled spaces, such
as lungs or swim bladders; most animals living in the deep ocean are
largely composed of water and water is incompressible.

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Sorry, but this can’t actually happen! Why not?
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4. Oxygen Concentration
• An oxygen-minimum layer occurs at approx. 500-1000 m depth
throughout the world’s oceans.
• Below that, almost all deep sea areas are rich in O2 (i.e. oxygen-
saturated).
Exceptions: anoxic basins, e.g. Black Sea and
Carioca Trench off Venezuela.

• Virtually all deep water masses originate from the surface at high
latitudes
e.g. North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) is formed off Greenland and is
carried around the planet by the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt –
thermohaline circulation (cold temperatures, thus oxygen-rich).
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Oxygen Minimum Layer

Eastern Pacific
Ocean

Tropical Atlantic
Ocean

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 Oxygen Circulation to the Deep-sea

Deep water
formation
(NADW)

NADW formation: high salinity, cold temperature, high O2 concentration, very

dense water sinks to the deep-sea and is circulated around the planet by
thermohaline circulation. 14
 Creature of the Oxygen
Minimum Layer

Photo: Steve Downer

In general, the O2 minimum layer is too
extreme an environment for most anaerobic
animals, but one animal found there is:
Vampyroteuthis infernalis
(the “vampire squid from hell”).

William Beebe (1926) described

Vampyroteuthis as "a very small but

MBARI
terrible octopus, black as night with
ivory white jaws and blood red eyes".

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Vampire squid

• Inhibits oxygen minimum zones

• Low mass-specific metabolic rate and efficient blue hemocyanine
• Lacks ink sac, but could curl web around to reveal spines and release bioluminescence cloud
5. Light
• The only sunlight in the deep-sea is in the upper mesopelagic =
disphotic zone, but only weak downwelling light is present
(“twilight zone”).
• No sunlight at all occurs below 1000 m = aphotic zone.
• Consequently, adaptations of organisms in the disphotic zone are
different from those in the aphotic zone due to:
• Presence of weak, downwelling light in the upper mesopelagic.
• No sunlight from the lower mesopelagic to the hadalpelagic.

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 SOC
Giant ostracod
Amphipod

Mysid shrimp

Whalefish
Atolla (jellyfish)

Red light does not reach far down in the ocean, so many midwater animals are transparent or
red and appear black at depth, and thus are less visible to predators and prey.
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• The only light in the aphotic zone is bioluminescence, i.e. biologically-
produced light from deep-sea organisms.
• Bioluminescence is common in many different animal groups in the
deep sea and serves several functions, e.g. defense, search light,
communication, countershading.
• Bioluminescent light is produced by a chemical reaction between a
“luciferin” substrate and a “luciferase” enzyme.

Luciferin Oxyluciferin
+ O2 luciferase + LIGHT

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 Deep-sea jellyfish, Atolla

• Most organisms that are bioluminescent produce a blue-green

light :
• blue-green wavelengths (around 470 nm) transmit furthest in water;
• most deep-sea organisms are sensitive to only blue-green light because
they lack other visual pigments, such as red, yellow, or violet.
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Bioluminescence in the Mesopelagic Zone
Lanternfish • Mesopelagic lanternfishes and
hatchetfishes have rows of ventral
photophores for counter-illumination
 a form of camouflage to mask their
silhouette when viewed from below.
Hatchetfish

Species-specific patterns of
light organs (or photophores)
are present in lanternfishes –
for communication?

Silver colour of hatchetfishes

help them blend in with their
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background
 Principle of Counter-illumination

Smithsonian Institute
Ventral countershading
in epipelagic fishes
(colouration)

Viewpoint below, looking upwards at downwelling light.

What about animals in the aphotic bathypelagic-abyssalpelagic?

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 Scopelarchus (pearleye):
structure of its tubular
eyes and two retinas.

Argyropelecus
(hatchetfish) - has
yellow filters to detect
bioluminescence
Focuses on distant Focuses on nearby
objects objects 23
 Barreleye (Macropinna microstoma)
- has upward-looking eyes and a transparent head
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Barreleye (Macropinna microstoma)

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 Richard Young
The stoplight loosejaw (Malacosteus niger) has the rare ability to
produce red bioluminescence to illuminate its prey, which it can
see but its prey cannot!
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6. Food Availability
Note: there is no primary production from photosynthesis.
Food reaching the deep-sea must therefore come from surface waters by
sinking.

Sinking food comes in the form of:

1. Terrestrial and marine vegetation.
2. Dead plankton (may arrive in the deep-sea as a seasonal pulse).
3. Faecal pellets (e.g. from copepods).
4. Moulted chitinous exoskeletons.
5. Large food falls (dead fish or marine mammals) – unpredictable.
6. Amorphous aggregations of particulate organic matter (POM) and other
detritus, or “marine snow”.
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Sources of Food To The Deep-sea
• Amount of food to the
deep-sea is
proportional to
amount of surface
production.
• Amount of food
decreases with
distance from land.
• The deeper the depth,
the less chance of food
reaching the bottom
because it gets
intercepted.

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© 2001 Benjamin Cummings, Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
Sources of food to the deep sea
• Food is scarce and not commonly encountered in the deep
sea.
• Many of the characteristics of deep-sea pelagic animals
are directly related to the scarcity of food.
• Fishes, for example, have to take advantage of any meal
that comes along, thus:
• are carnivores or detritivores
• may have a large mouth and gape
• may possess large teeth
• have a distensible stomach

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 Mesopelagic Zone - Deep Scattering Layer (DSL)
• Some upper mesopelagic fauna undergo daily vertical migration to
epipelagic waters at night, back at depth by day, forming dense
layers that reflect sound waves strongly, hence “deep scattering
layers” (DSL).
• Upper mesopelagic animals can therefore be divided into:
• Vertical migrators – these animals undergo daily or diel vertical migrations
from 200-700 m to productive surface waters and form the DSL .
• Non-migrators – do not undergo daily vertical migrations, usually energy-
conserving sit-and-wait predators or detritivores waiting for food to fall.

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 Deep Scattering Layer (DSL)
Night Day Night

Migrating 500 m is equivalent to us

walking 40 km each day for our dinner!

From Dypvik & Kaartvedt (2013)

A sonar trace showing sound-reflecting DSLs – concentrations of

mesopelagic vertical migrators distributed deep during the day, rising up to
the surface at night-time
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Diel vertical migration accelerates transport of C to ocean depths
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Myctophids, bristlemouths, various squid, krill, shrimps,
siphonophores, and jellyfishes are dominant organisms of the DSL.
Myctophid, Myctophum sp. Krill

Abralia (squid)

Bristlemouth

This is the largest migration on Earth! Periphylla (jellyfish) 33

Vertical Migrators versus Non-Migrators

E.g. Myctophids E.g. Dragonfishes

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In the viperfish (Chauliodus, a type of dragonfish), the
jaw is hinged to allow an extremely wide gape,
allowing it to swallow very large prey.
Its huge teeth ensure that prey caught cannot easily
escape, thus act like the bars of a cage.
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 Bathypelagic - Abyssalpelagic Zones
• Very low food availability as more gets intercepted as they sink,
only ~5% that of surface.
• Conserving energy is the principal strategy, so many animals are
slow-moving or sedentary (note: too far for vertical migration to
be energetically cost-effective).
• Poor swimmers - watery muscles, no streamlining, weak
skeletons, low metabolism. Bodies are close to being neutrally
buoyant.
• Bioluminescence is still common, but not used for counter-
illumination, instead it is used for:
• Attracting prey, defense, attracting mates.
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 David Shale
Photo: David Shale

Photo: David Shale

Female ceratioid (Himantolophus) Stomiatoid (Eustomias)

Use of bioluminescent ‘fishing’ lures that resemble a tasty meal to catch prey, e.g.
modified dorsal fin of ceratioids, and chin barbel of dragonfishes (stomiatoids).
The bioluminescence is produced by symbiotic bacteria.
Bathypelagic and abyssopelagic fishes have reduced eyes and may depend on
touch or smell instead of vision. 37
Eupharynx pelecanoides
Gulper eels have an extremely wide
mouth and a distensible stomach to be
able swallow any size of prey.

Female deep-sea angler fishes, or

ceratioids, attract prey with a
bioluminescent lure, which are
then swallowed by a large mouth
and distensible stomach.
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 Black swallower
(Chiasmodon niger)

But, there is a limit! 39

Reproduction in the Deep-sea
There is very little knowledge on reproduction of deep-sea animals.
• Metabolism is slow, so growth is slow. Deep-sea animals show delayed
sexual maturity and produce few eggs.
• Encountering mates may be difficult, not necessarily because of the
darkness, but because the deep-sea is VAST!
• Many species have evolved to be hermaphrodites.
• Specialized reproductive strategies,
• e.g. ceratioids exhibit extreme sexual dimorphism: juvenile males have some streamlining
and fairly good swimming ability, also good olfactory sense in contrast to females. A male
can detect and find a female by the pheromones she emits.

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