Ailish Ullmann
I am researching how habitat heterogeneity influences the biodiversity of fauna living on polymetallic nodules, and how disturbance may influence habitat heterogeneity. Polymetallic nodules are increasingly being targeted for mining both on the high seas and in countries’ EEZs, so understanding the communities they support—and how resilient those communities may be to disturbance—will be critical in managing this new extractive industry. My research on habitat heterogeneity focuses on how faunal communities vary across habitat types, spatial scales, time, and environmental gradients. It is a small piece of a much larger project to conduct baseline studies of deep-sea ecosystems in deep-sea mining exploration license areas. The hope is that, based on this research, we’ll be able to estimate how largescale disturbances like mining influence habitat heterogeneity and subsequently deep-sea faunal assemblages, information which can then be used for management and conservation of deep-sea biodiversity.
Abstracts this author is presenting: