Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered thriving communities of protists and other fauna in the deepest parts of the ocean. These organisms live on hard substrates in trenches between 6,000 and 11,000 meters deep, including the Mariana and Kermadec trenches. The study reveals that these deep-sea communities act as significant carbon hotspots, contributing up to 11 percent of the total eukaryotic biomass carbon in global hadal trenches. This discovery suggests that the biological pump, which moves carbon from the surface to the deep ocean, may be more efficient than previously thought.
