Habitat variability and faunal zonation at the Ægir Ridge, a canyon-like structure in the deep Norwegian Sea.

The Ægir Ridge System (ARS) is an ancient extinct spreading axis in the Nordic seas extending from the upper slope east of Iceland (∼550 m depth), as part of its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), to a depth of ∼3,800 m in the Norwegian basin. Geomorphologically a rift valley, the ARS has a canyon-like structure that may promote increased diversity and faunal density. The main objective of this study was to characterize benthic habitats and related macro- and megabenthic communities along the ARS, and the influence of water mass variables and depth on them.

Climate-induced changes in the suitable habitat of cold-water corals and commercially important deep-sea fishes in the North Atlantic.

The deep sea plays a critical role in global climate regulation through uptake and storage of heat and carbon dioxide. However, this regulating service causes warming, acidification and deoxygenation of deep waters, leading to decreased food availability at the seafloor. These changes and their projections are likely to affect productivity, biodiversity and distributions of deep-sea fauna, thereby compromising key ecosystem services.

The effect of CO2 acidified sea water and reduced salinity on aspects of the embryonic development of the amphipod Echinogammarus marinus (Leach).

We investigated the effect of CO(2) acidified sea water (S=35, 22 and 10(PSU)) on embryonic development of the intertidal amphipod Echinogammarus marinus (Leach). Low pH, but not low salinity (22(PSU)), resulted in a more protracted embryonic development in situ although the effect was only evident at low salinity. However reduced salinity, not pH, exerted a strong significant effect, on numbers and calcium content of hatchlings.