Discovery of 12 new species in the deep ocean at risk from climate crisis

The newly-discovered species include corals, sea mosses and molluscs

A dozen deep-sea species have been discovered during the largest and most ambitious study ever of Atlantic ecosystems.

But the scientists who undertook the five-year, EU-funded ATLAS Project, warned that those creatures are threatened by the impacts by human activities and at risk from climate crisis. 

The newly-discovered species, which live around 1,300 feet (400 meters) below the surface, include corals, sea mosses, and molluscs. The researchers also found around 35 new records of species in areas where they were not previously known.

The discoveries included a bivalve, named Myonera atlasiana in tribute to the project, at mud volcanoes on the northern Gulf of Cádiz in Spain.

Much of the deep ocean remains unexplored. On January 1, 2021 the United Nations will launch its Decade of Ocean Science, a global project to explore and protect the world’s oceans.

Oceans have slowed the impacts of the climate crisis, absorbing more than 90 per cent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases. 

Studies estimate that heating of the upper oceans accounts for more than 60 per cent of the total increase in stored heat in the climate system from 1971 - 2010, and warming from around 700 meters to the ocean floor adds another 30 per cent.

The increase of carbon dioxide threatens marine ecosystems due to ocean acidification, which causes the shells or skeletons of organisms made from calcium carbonate to dissolve. 

Acidification, combined with food sources becoming scarce, will significantly decrease suitable habitats for deep-sea species by the end of the century.

The ATLAS team, which conducted more than 40 Atlantic research expeditions, found that almost half of cold water coral habitats were at risk from ocean acidification, while 19 percent of deep-sea ecosystems were threatened.

“As the birthplace of deep-sea biology and the cradle of oceanography, the North Atlantic is the place we should know best, but only in the last 20 years have we uncovered how varied and vulnerable its deep-sea habitats really are,” University of Edinburgh Professor Murray Roberts, ATLAS co-ordinator, said in a statement.