Do cetaceans eat mesopelagic organisms?
Mesopelagic organisms are important prey for cetacean species, that are known to feed heavily on them, diving to great depth or relying on the diel vertical migration of mesopelagic prey to surface waters [Gimenez [...]
Using environmental DNA to study the behavior and ecology of deep sea fish!
Researchers at AZTI explored how they could use environmental DNA (eDNA) collected in the open ocean in order to gather more knowledge on deep sea fish. Model of DNA strands. By Topshots (Adobe [...]
New Equipment for Sampling the Mesopelagic zone
One of the main goals of the team from the University of St Andrews in SUMMER is to estimate the biomass of fish in the mesopelagic zone (200 - 1000 m depth). We intended to [...]
The Ocean Twilight Zone – Infographic
Check out this new infographic made by illustrator Alazne Zubizarreta, and researcher Raul Prellezo (AZTI)! Download it from the Media-Center under "promotional materials".
Why open data are great – and necessary
“Open data” means that scientists make the data that they collect available to everyone, without any cost or other barrier. This is part of “Open Science”, which also includes publishing research articles in open access, [...]
On causality or science behind the papers
As in movies, science has a behind the “paper” history that illustrates the continuous challenge of hypothesis implicit to the scientific process. Here, we will tell you about one of those histories related to our [...]
News Archive
5 Facts About Mesopelagic Fish!
Mesopelagic fish are small, abundant fish living in the mesopelagic zone between the depth of 200-1000m. They exist and inhabit all of the worlds oceans. These are central to the SUMMER project, as they [...]
Have you ever heard about BARNA, and its role in the SUMMER project?
BARNA, S.A. is a company located in Mundaka, north of Spain on the shores of the Cantabrian Sea. BARNA has since 1961 been dedicated to the management and transformation of by-products from the fishing [...]
Possibilities and limitations of opportunistic sampling of the mesopelagic layer
Research surveys at sea can be both time consuming and expensive. Opportunistic sampling of the mesopelagic community during routine research surveys is therefore a credible option to enhance our knowledge of the mesopelagic ecosystem [...]
Why one of the superpredators known as Bluefin tuna prefers to spawn in an area considered as a marine desert and why it is great for the SUMMER project?
Mesopelagic organisms play an important role in the marine ecosystems as they transfer energy and organic matter between the surface layers and the deep sea via the regular mechanism called diel vertical migration (DVM). One [...]
Discover LEITAT and its role in the SUMMER project
LEITAT is a private technological centre with headquarters in Terrassa, Spain with more than 110 years of experience in R&D, technology transfer and industrial innovation services. With over 290 highly skilled team members, LEITAT [...]
Identifying key members of the mesopelagic ensemble in situ
To enhance our knowledge on the mesopelagic community and the importance of the organisms inhabiting this domain, key players in various regions of the world need to be identified, their abundance assessed, and their [...]
Modelling the mesopelagic fish across the world’s oceans
We usually consider the fish community as being “well-mixed”. What this means is that we model the fish food-web, but we do not represent how fish distribute themselves horizontally or vertically. We make this [...]
Preliminary simulations form the coupled NEMO-PISCES-APECOSM (NPA) model from 1958 to 2018
APECOSM is a mechanistic 3D size-structured integrated ecosystem model developed by the IRD team in SUMMER. In the SUMMER project, it is coupled two-ways to the ocean-biogeochemistrery model NEMO-PISCES to investigate the [...]
Zooplankton biomass in the deep ocean higher than previously estimated
The organic carbon produced by photosynthesis in the illuminated area of the ocean that is not consumed there, sediments to the so-called mesopelagic zone (between 200 and 1000 m deep) where it remains for [...]
Historical video on research and the deep scattering layer
For all those interesting in the deep scattering layer and historical research, this film from the 1970s gives an interesting perspective. The film is available on YouTube from the Periscope Film LLC archive, one [...]