The Maldives' Hidden "Oasis of Life" Was Discovered Deep Under the Sea

 

Submarine view from the Nekton Maldives Mission. (Nekton Maldives Mission/Nekton 2022)

A group of "aquanauts" has discovered that the Maldives are an oasis in a large watery desert for life in the deep ocean.

A new kind of thriving ecosystem that has never been seen before has been discovered during a recent submarine mission around a Deepwater seamount in the archipelago.

It is being referred to as "The Trapping Zone" :a world that is 1,640 feet deep and 500 meters wide, where large fish gather to eat tiny nekton.

Similar to zooplankton, micronekton are slightly larger than zooplankton, measuring between 2 and 20 centimeters (up to 7 inches), with krill being among the smaller ones.

Each day and night, these tiny organisms actively swim between the ocean's surface and waters a kilometer deep, creating a vertical wave of migration as larger fish feed on them.

The first study to systematically map the deep waters of the Maldives, a chain of 26 coral atolls southwest of Sri Lanka and India, is the Nekton Maldives Mission.

The Government of the Maldives, a non-profit research institute with the same name, and researchers from the University of Oxford collaborated on the mission.

Based on the movement of micronekton, the international team has already discovered a new ecosystem that surrounds the deep-sea mountain "Satho Rahaa."

These tiny organisms begin to swim below the surface each day when the Sun rises. However, near the submerged seamount, fossilized carbonate reefs and submerged volcanic ridges that were formed 60 million years ago prevent micronekton from diving below 500 meters.

The animals become "sitting ducks" for larger predators that live in the zone, such as schools of tuna, hungry sharks, and other Deepwater fish like spiky Oreos, alfonsinos, and dog fish.

Aquanauts on the mission watched as a teeming ecosystem of predators and prey fought in the deep from a glass bubble submarine called the Omega Seamaster II.

The team not only counted a lot of fish, but they also saw a lot of different kinds of fish. Tiger sharks, gill sharks, gulper sharks, scalloped hammerhead sharks, silky sharks, sand tiger sharks, and even relatively uncommon bramble sharks were illuminated by their submarine.

"Why is this taking place? Is this something that only happens at 500 meters, does this life go deeper, and if so, what is this transition, what is it, and why? "wonders University of Oxford marine scientist Lucy Woodall.

"This will give us a much better understanding of the deep ocean."

If there is such an ecosystem in the Maldives, it probably exists on other oceanic islands with underwater structures that are similar.

Because of the way they entangle micronekton, seamounts and submerged volcanoes might be hotspots for life in the deep sea.

Some estimates place the daily, back-and-forth vertical movement of fish through the water column as the largest mass migration on the planet.

Micronekton and zooplankton appear to be the pack's leaders. Even though micronekton make up a lot of biomass in pelagic environments, we don't know much about how they move around like zooplankton.

Micronekton are creating an overlooked food web for ocean ecosystems worldwide by actively swimming up and down the water column. According to some estimates, all of the world's micronekton weigh more than 10 billion metric tons, or 45 times more than humans.

However, the majority of our knowledge of these creatures dates back to the 1960s and 1970s. Scientists have only recently begun to pay more attention to them.

Micronekton are not commercially hunted because they easily pass through fishing nets. Having said that, micronekton is very important to many fish species, including tuna, which are important to the fishing industry.

A bramble shark seen in the Maldives 'Trapping Zone'. (Nekton Maldives Mission)

The trapping zone that was recently discovered in the Maldives might make it possible for scientists to learn more about these often-ignored organisms in a new way, which could lead to improved methods for conserving the ocean.

"This has all the hallmarks of a distinct new ecosystem," says Oxford University marine biologist Alex Rogers.

"The Trapping Zone is creating a life-sustaining haven in the Maldives, and it is highly likely to exist on the slopes of continents and other oceanic islands."

Sadly, recent climate reports suggest that some micronekton, like Antarctic krill, are having trouble coping with the crisis caused by global warming.

Other fish, mammals, and birds are likely to follow if they disappear.

More information about the Nekton Maldives Mission can be found here.