A study of meiofauna in the COMRA's contracted area during the summer of 2005

Abstract

Polymetallic nodules were discovered on the Pacific Ocean in 1891. They exist at the sediment surface, sometimes in upper layers of sediments, and cover more than 50% of the sea floor at Clarion鄄Clipperton fracture Zone ( CCFZ) in the north Pacific. The huge economic value from nodule mining has brought to many research programs dedicated to resource evaluation and design of collecting tools in the 1970s. China has carried out surveys on polymetallic nodules and sediment in the CCFZ for many years. Since the late 1980s, China has already got 75000 km 2 exclusive pioneer areas in COMRA忆s contracted area. One of the potential impacts of nodule mining is the destruction of the fauna attached to the partial covering of surrounding epifauna by sediment blanketing. Meiofauna, the important components of benthic ecosystem, are considered to be energetically important in benthic food web. as they play a critical role in the recycling of nutrients. In order to manage and mitigate these impacts, we need to better understand the composition and the distribution of meiofauna and its relationship to the environment.A quantitative study was carried out on " Dayang Yihao冶 in July 2005. The meiofauna samples were collected from 12

Community structure of deep-sea benthic metazoan meiofauna in the polymetallic nodule fields in the eastern Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, Pacific Ocean

“…Similar to other studies in the CCFZ (Wilson & Hessler, 1987;Kaneko et al, 1997;Radziejewska & Modlitba, 1999;Kim et al, 2000;Gao et al, 2002;Min et al, 2004;Kim et al, 2004;Wang et al, 2013;Min et al, 2018), elsewhere in the Pacific Ocean (e.g., Snider et al, 1984;Shirayama, 1984) and other oceans worldwide (e.g., Ansari & Parulekar, 1981;Woods & Tietjen, 1985;Shirayama & Kojima, 1994;Zeng et al, 2018), the majority of meiobenthos are concentrated in the top sediment layers. Meiofaunal higher taxon composition (including "Nauplii") was also similar, in J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f that the Nematoda was the most prevalent, or Foraminifera if the study included the protozoans, followed by the Nauplii and Copepoda (Wilson & Hessler, 1987;Kaneko et al, 1997;Radziejewska et al, 2001;Kim et al, 2000;Gao et al, 2002;Kim et al, 2004;Min et al, 2004;Wang et al, 2013;Pape et al, 2017;Min et al, 2018;Hauquier et al, 2019).…”

Distribution Patterns of Meiofauna Assemblages and Their Relationship With Environmental Factors of Deep Sea Adjacent to the Yap Trench, Western Pacific Ocean

“…Gao et al (2002), Yang et al (2005), and Liu et al (2014) studied the abundance, biomass, and spatial distribution of meiofauna. Ye et al (2005) and Wang et al (2013) studied the methodology of meiofauna research in deep sea. Although deep seas are less disturbed by humans than shallow waters, deep-sea ecosystems are disrupted as mineral extraction, natural gas/hydrocarbon exploration and global warming, ocean acidification, hypoxia, etc.…”

Preliminary studies of the tardigrada communities from a polymetallic nodule area of the deep South China Sea

“…was the most relatively abundant species at Station S1 (27.6%) (Table 5). This study showed that the marine tardigrade abundance in the deep South China Sea was much higher than that in the abyssal East Pacific Ocean and the adjacent areas to the Yap Trench of the Western Pacific Ocean (Table 6) (Wang et al, 2013;Wang et al, 2019). Many studies have indicated that food availability is an important factor that affects meiofauna abundance (Danovaro et al, 2002;Gambi and Danovaro, 2016;Leduc et al, 2016).…”