standardization of environmental data and information - International ...

collect samples wherever he went in the deep ocean, to be screened for
unusual enzymes. Samples had been collected in the Antarctic and off the
coast of California. A number of products had already been geared up for
marketing, including a cold-adapted enzyme for use in cold-water
detergents. Other enzymes were for use in pharmaceuticals and in almost
any low-temperature application. The huge diversity of animals and
probably of bacteria in the deep-sea sediment might have a major economic
potential.
No fishes of current economic importance inhabited the deep
seabed, due to the low productivity of the environment. Rat-tails were
commercially fished in the slope off California at depths of 2000-3000 m,
and as some of the same genera and possibly the same species were found
in the CCFZ, there might be a potential to fish those. However, the biomass
of fish in that region was so low – perhaps a few kilograms per square
kilometre -- that they would probably never be commercially fished, and if
they were, they would be quickly fished out.
Seabed biology
Responding to questions about animal life at the ocean bottom,
Smith said not much was known about life spans. Data from a 7-8-mm-long
abyssal clam in the North Atlantic Ocean suggested that it might live 100
years but the error bars on that estimate were so broad that the life span
might be only 10 years. Nor was there much information about how far
individual animals moved around over the course of their lives or how many
other species they interacted with. As to interactions between watercolumn
and benthic biota, animals such as scavenging arthropods that fed
at bait on the seafloor could also be caught 1 km above in the water
column. However, the intensity of such interactions and exchanges and
their importance to the community were not well understood. Food-chain
relationships were also poorly understood but there were predators living in
the sediment and benthopelagic species using benthic biota as a food
source. For example, some arthropods fed on infauna polychaetes and
some rat-tails had sediment in their guts. There was a feeling that deep-sea
ecology was very sensitive but not enough was known to make firm
predictions.
Likening the situation of seabed mining to that on land, a
participant remarked that one might have to wait until a new forest grew
before learning how long a destroyed forest community would take to
83 INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY