Revealing ecosystem connections between seamounts in the deep sea
by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan
November 27, 2025
Naoki Saito, a researcher at the Integrated Research Center for Nature Positive Technology of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) (and who is also affiliated with the Research Institute of Geology and Geoinformation), and his colleagues analyzed the ecosystem connectivity of 18 seamounts distributed in the deep sea of the northwest Pacific Ocean by simulating the dispersion of planktonic larvae, and identified seamounts that could be important conservation targets for maintaining connectivity throughout the marine region.
Cobalt-rich crusts distributed on deep-sea seamounts in the Northwest Pacific Ocean are expected to be a new source of rare metals and other metallic resources, and may be targets for future mining. However, commercial-scale mining on deep-sea seamounts has not been conducted to date, so the impact of mining on seamount ecosystems is unknown. Many marine organisms that live on seamounts disperse as planktonic larvae on ocean currents, and are thought to form ecological and genetic connectivity between seamounts. Although there have been studies using genetic analysis on several seamounts to date, the overall picture of connectivity between seamounts has not been fully understood, and there have also been limited examples of simulations of planktonic larval dispersal on deep-sea seamounts.
In this study, researchers used an ocean current model to simulate the dispersal of planktonic larvae at 18 seamounts in the Northwest Pacific, including those with the potential for future mining of cobalt-rich crusts. Furthermore, they compared the results of the dispersal simulation with genetic connectivity analysis and ocean current observations to confirm their consistency. The results of the dispersal simulation revealed that the choice of seamount for mining could result in the isolation of seamount ecosystems, and identified seamounts that serve as important stopover points for maintaining ecosystem connectivity throughout the ocean region. The findings from this study will contribute to the design of effective conservation zones to maintain ecosystem connectivity between seamounts.
Keep reading (in Japanese): https://www.aist.go.jp/aist_j/press_release/pr2025/pr20251127/pr20251127.html
Read the Ecological Applications paper: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eap.70086