deep-sea benthic habitats

Validated habitat mapping links ocean floor features to biological communities

Seamount slopes and guyot summits are not just geological features, they are biological neighborhoods. Our study of the Northwest Pacific tested whether environmental data alone can map those neighborhoods. It cannot. By adding sparse biological records into a dual-path classification framework, we uncovered latitudinal patterns in benthic communities that bathymetry alone missed. This matters for conservation: 12 candidate areas covering 27% of the region now await representativeness assessment.