New study finds 19th-century wooden shipwrecks to be thriving habitats for deep-sea microbiomes

A recent study shows that historic wooden shipwrecks have an effect on the community. There are millions of wrecks in the world's oceans, each with a potential new home for sea life. This is the first evidence of how human structures affect the distribution ofMicrobes in the deep sea

According to a new study, wooden shipwrecks are similar to natural geological structures. There are islands of deep-sea life on wood fall and other hard surfaces, but little is known about the diversity of human-made habitats on the seafloor. The impact of human activities on the environment is the first research to show this.

Microbial communities give clear evidence of how human activities change life in the ocean.

Natural hard habitats, some of which have been present for hundreds to thousands of years, are important for the diversity of life on the ocean floor. The work is the first to show that built habitats affect the films of microbes on the surfaces. Hard habitats can be transformed into islands of biodiversity with the help of the biofilms.

Microcommunities.

Most of the three million wrecks around the world are made of wood. The two wooden sailing ships that sank in the Gulf of Mexico in the late 19th century were chosen as an initial study.

The team placed pieces of pine and oak at different distances from the sunken ship. After four months, they got back the samples and measured all of the organisms.

Oak was more favorable than pine when it came to the impact on the diversity ofbacteria. Depending on the location of the wreck site, the microbial diversity was different.

Surprisingly, samples taken close to the wrecks did not show the most diversity.

There is a convergence of factors.

The presence of these wrecks increased the richness of the surrounding flora and fauna. The distribution of biofilms depended on a number of factors, including the depth of the water and proximity to a source of water.

There are thousands of oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico alone, as well as many more worldwide, despite the current study focusing on wooden structures. The impact of these structures needs to be better understood.

While we are aware human impacts on the seabed are increasing through multiple economic uses, scientific discovery is not keeping pace with how this shapes the biology and chemistry of natural under sea landscapes We hope this work will lead to research on how habitats are changing the deep sea.

More information: Rachel D. Moseley et al, Historic Wooden Shipwrecks Influence Dispersal of Deep-Sea Biofilms, Frontiers in Marine Science (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2022.873445 , www.frontiersin.org/articles/1 … ars.2022.873445/full Journal information: Frontiers in Marine Science