A pioneering study has used extensive global datasets and machine learning to map the activities of seafloor invertebrate animals, including worms, clams and shrimps, across the entire ocean, revealing for the first time critical factors that support and maintain the health of marine ecosystems.
A pioneering study has used extensive global datasets and machine learning to map the activities of seafloor invertebrate animals, including worms, clams and shrimps, across the entire ocean, revealing for the first time critical factors that support and maintain the health of marine ecosystems.
The international team, led by Texas A&M University and including investigators from Yale University and the University of Southampton, specifically focused on the unsung yet vital role burrowing animals play as “ecosystem engineers” in shaping nutrient cycling and ecosystem health — and, in turn, maritime economies and food security — throughout the oceans. The researchers used machine learning to map out a global picture of these animals’ activities and the environmental conditions that drive them.
Marine sediments cover the majority of the Earth’s surface and are extremely diverse. By stirring up and churning the seafloor — a process known as bioturbation — seafloor invertebrates play a significant role in regulating global carbon, nutrient and biogeochemical cycles, explains Texas A&M Department of Oceanography Assistant Professor Dr. Shuang Zhang, lead researcher and first author of the study, which is published May 22 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology.
Read more at: Texas A&M University
Seafloor sediments that have been burrowed and churned by invertebrate animals, which new research shows play an important role in protecting marine ecosystems. (Photo Credit: Dr. Martin Solan, University of Southampton)
