Investigating Mesopelagic Organism Occurrence Along the Southeastern United States

Abstract

More than half of Earth is covered by ocean, yet little is known about the deep sea (> 200 meters), particularly the water column. From 200 to 1,000 meters below the ocean surface is the mesopelagic zone, where a variety of organisms thrive. Within this zone, there is a portion of the water column where mesopelagic organisms are highly abundant due to light differences and predator avoidance, causing the region to be acoustically dense; this is known as the deep scattering layer (DSL). We hypothesized