Scientists have discovered something very unique beneath the ocean’s surface in the Maldives. It’s so unique, in fact, researchers are saying this particular ecosystem has never been described before.
The Nekton Maldives Mission has been systemically mapping the deep waters around the Maldives, which covers about 298 square kilometers if you include the landmass of the archipelago as well as the water surrounding it all. The research was simply meant to observe any connections between the shallower depths of the ocean and the deeper parts of it. Anybody who’s watched a single 30-minute block of NatGeo programming knows things get weird in the parts of the ocean where all light disappears and every other animal looks like it belongs on another planet.
At around 500 meters deep, the Nekton team stumbled onto what they’ve dubbed “The Trapping Zone.” They’ve learned that micronekton, small organisms that drift along with the ocean’s currents, are dictating the movements and activity of larger organisms up and down water columns. We’re all typically more concerned with the movements and activities of larger animals, but tuna, for example, are largely dependent on things like micronekton. So, you can easily see how their movement would have a domino effect on plenty of other ocean life.
“This is a zone where fish migrating from the surface at dawn are trapped against the sea floor and they create a food source for the predators that are resident at the depth,” Professor Alex Rogers, a researcher on the Nekton Science team, explains about The Trapping Zone.
The result is an oasis of life (and food) in a part of the ocean that scientists would otherwise describe as a desert. And now they want to learn just why this is all happening at such a specific depth and why it’s specific to the Maldives. They believe what they’re finding here is likely to exists in other parts of the world also.
“I think we found something very unusual,” says Oliver Steeds, the Nekton research director. “And it’s that information, that knowledge that can help us form policies, sustainable governance around this ocean, around its conservation.”
