Scientists have developed a novel solution to mapping the southern hemisphere's deep ocean which they hope will fill gaps in knowledge around the species and habitats it contains.
Like much of the Global South, there has until now been little scientific exploration of the South Atlantic and knowledge of its diversity is limited as a consequence.
This hinders the management of such areas, something increasingly seen as being of critical importance as talks continue around the development of High Seas Marine Protected Areas.
To address that, an international team of researchers - led by the University of Plymouth - began investigating whether a technique combining mathematical modelling and underwater video footage of deep-sea coral reefs from the well-studied North Atlantic could be applied to the poorly-understood South Atlantic.
In the new research, published in the Journal of Environmental Management, researchers then used the very few known locations of reefs in the South Atlantic to assess the new predictions provided by the model and found it performed well.
They also found that more than two-thirds of the seabed areas identified as being suitable for deep water corals in the South Atlantic are currently covered by nationally managed Marine Protected Areas, and therefore protected from activities such as trawl-fishing.
This study is the first example of a deep ocean habitat suitability model being transferred from a data-rich to a data-poor ocean basin
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