Climate change will harm life on the deep ocean floor, study finds

A study of a species of tiny shrimp living around deep-sea vents has found that they produce microscopic larvae as part of their lifecycle and that when these larvae migrate they have to rely on food coming down from the sunlit waters above. So the animals living on the deep seabed have to time the hatching of their eggs to coincide with spring blooms of microscopic plant life growing at the surface – a link that has been overlooked.

Dr Copley and his colleagues studied deep-sea shrimps and mussels and found they have a reproductive cycle that is seasonal – just like surface creatures – even though they are totally isolated from the changes in the seasons. They have to do this to ensure their larvae survive.