COMARGE

About

Field projects on continental margins worldwide

Highlights

The COMARGE project came up with the acknowledgement that the biodiversity of continental margins can not be assessed nor understood without considering their structural and functional complexity. Indeed, during the past few decades, our understanding of deep continental-margin habitats has changed more than for any other large area of Earth. Once envisioned as monotonous landscapes, continental margins are now acknowledged to have a high degree of complexity and diversity. Fundamental patterns of species distribution first observed and explained in the context of monotonous slopes must now be re-evaluated in light of the newly recognized heterogeneity.

Visit the COMARGE network worldwide (click on the map)

More than gigantic:

coral off mauritania

The deep-sea coral structures discovered on the Mauritanian continental margin reach more than 400 km in length...more.

BIG cruise: Follow the exploration of the Guyamas basin off Mexico, discover chimiosynthetic ecosystems and their astonishing fauna on Ifremer website (in french and spanish).

Ireland’s Deep Oceans Offer New Opportunities...more.

Taxonomy made easy: an interactive key to the identification of squat lobsters families and genera is now available (Intkey software needed)...more.

Seabed biodiversity in oxygen minimum zones: Some regions of the deep ocean floor support abundant populations of organisms, despite being overlain by water that contains very little oxygen But global warming is likely to exacerbate oxygen depletion and thereby reduce biodiversity in these regions, they warn. More on the National Oceanography Centre website.

Workshops

New species

In Press

Workshop on large scale patterns in bathyal free-living nematodes...Report (pdf)

Workshop on Marine Squat Lobsters at NIWA, Wellington, New-Zealand ...Report (pdf)

"Habitat Classification and Mapping on deep Continental Margins" at National Oceanography Center, Southampton, UK...programme (pdf)

"Towards a globalization of the project" at the Institut Oceanographique, Paris ...read more

Callianassid

Exploration in the deep Gulf of Cadiz reveals new species of shrimp and hydroid associated with mud volcanoes

The roles of habitat heterogeneity in generating and maintaining biodiversity on continental margins: As a result of the eponym workshop oragnized by COMARGE, a special issue of Marine Ecology now in open access.
Deep-Sea Benthic Ecosystems of the Equatorial African Margin: The Multidisciplinary BIOZAIRE Program - A Contribution to Census of Marine Life. A special issue of Deep Sea Research II edited by Myriam Sibuet and Annick Vangriesheim.
	"Deeper Than Light" - A collaborative book of the deep-sea field projects of the Census of Marine Life to enlighten all publics on deep-sea life. For sale on the EuroCoML website.

Ampelisca mississippiana was discovered at the head of mississippi canyon in the Gulf of Mexico

The roles of habitat heterogeneity in generating and maintaining biodiversity on continental margins: As a result of the eponym workshop oragnized by COMARGE, a special issue of Marine Ecology now in open access.