Wood on the seafloor has ripple effects for nearby deep-sea animal communities

What is it about?

Southern California’s deep sea is home to many hard seafloor habitats, ranging from different types of rocks to less familiar materials like sunken wood and bone. In this study, we used an experiment to see how communities of small animals (≥ 0.3 mm) respond when uninhabited rocks (four different types) and wood are placed on the seafloor, and whether those responses vary with water depth or distance from shore. We found that the wood-boring mollusk Xylophaga drove most of the patterns observed in the experiment, including both those found on experimental rocks and nearby (non-experimental) rocks.

Featured Image

Photo by Clayton Tonna on Unsplash

Photo by Clayton Tonna on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Although Xylophaga is well-known for shaping animal communities living on wood, this study demonstrates that its influence can extend to nearby rock communities. This spillover effect shows that wood-specialist like Xylophaga may play a broader role in structuring deep-sea communities than previously thought.