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Flourishing chemosynthetic life at the greatest depths of hadal trenches
The discovery of chemosynthesis-based benthic communities at depths of 5,800 m to 9,533 m in the Kuril–Kamchatka and western Aleutian trenches challenges traditional perspectives on the energy sources sustaining hadal fauna.
The base diagram is adapted from previous studies 25, 26, 28, which used field measurements of stable carbon and hydrogen isotopes of methane (CH 4) from diverse sedimentary environments to distinguish between different types of microbial and thermogenic methanogenesis. Ikaite δ 13 C values range from −17.29‰ to −26.89‰ (Extended Data Table 3), suggesting that they are probably authigenic precipitates from \({{\rm{CO}}}_{3}^{2-}\) supplied from the early diagenetic decomposition of sedimentary organic matter 32, preceding microbial methane oxidation. Visual assessment of species identification, density and spatial structure of the macro-epifauna and mega-epifauna of the seep communities was carried out on the basis of the analysis of video footage recorded by two high-definition cameras mounted on the human-occupied vehicle.
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