The deep sea is one of the most gripping , unknown , and downright weird ecosystems on Earth .
as luck would have it , marine biologists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute are working hard to unravel its mysteries . lately , they have expect at intellectual nourishment web within the deep sea , including shrimp munching jellies and deep - ocean Pisces the Fishes eat squid . Their research was published this calendar month in the journalProceedings of the Royal Society B.
They started by looking at portions of the sea off the coast of central California , from the near - control surface decent down to 4,000 metre ( 13,120 feet ) . In this area alone , they managed to reckon out at least 84 unlike predators and 82 dissimilar fair game types that engage in a sum of 242 unparalleled feeding relationship .
Many of these late discoveries are ground on 23,000 hours of video film by a remote - curb sub . good of all , you may check out the highlights of this stunning footage for yourself ( below ) .
Jellies , of all creatures , appear to be one of the most subservient predators of the deep ocean , perhaps as crucial to the ecosystem as great Pisces .
“ Our video footage shows that jelly are definitely not the dietary ' drained ends ' we once thought,”Anela Choy , one of the three researchers extend the labor , explicate in astatement . “ As fundamental predatory animal , they could have just as much shock as large fishes and squids in the deep sea ! ”
scientist typically work out deep - sea food for thought chains by collecting creatures , slicing them open , and seem at what ’s in their intestine . However , this method has its drawbacks . Scientists on this labor , therefore , studied their diet by comparing the ratio of various natural constituent in the bass - ocean brute ' tissues , paired with the video footage , to work out the intricate chains of predation .
“ This direct approach has never been used consistently before , " said carbon monoxide - author Bruce Robison . " Unlike other methods , it postulate no dead reckoning and provides very exact information about who eat whom in the deep ocean . "
All deep - ocean intellectual nourishment webs were found to be ultimately fuel by processes in the sunstruck surface waters , namely by phytoplankton - based constitutive matter that laps up the sunshine and produces free energy through photosynthesis . These are then ingested by krill and other zooplankton or by gelatinous filter feeders . The web then spreads out with ever - gaining complexity through jelly , Pisces , squid , and beyond .
This food for thought can also finish up on our own dinner plates . as , it on a regular basis ends up in the bellies of penguins , albatross , sea sunfish , leatherback turtles , and all fashion of animal who do n’t dwell in the deep ocean .
It ’s a squid - eat - squid world down there , but it sure is interesting .
