Protist-dominated hard substrate faunas thrive at the deepest ocean depths

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Song, Xikun; Gooday, Andrew J.; Gordon, Dennis P.; Leduc, Daniel; Sun, Yike; Wang, Zizhu; He, Qian; Gao, Zhaoming; Ruthensteiner, Bernhard; Waeschenbach, Andrea; Schwaha, Thomas; Lin, Xiaolan; Zhang, Hanyu; Rowden, Ashley; Xu, Hengchao; Liu, Shuangquan; Chen, Shun; Meng, Liang; Li, Dee; Alfiansah, Yustian Rovi; Guo, Huijie; Du, Mengran; Peng, Xiaotong
• 署名单位: Chinese Academy of Sciences; Institute of Deep-Sea Science & Engineering, CAS; NERC National Oceanography Centre; Natural History Museum London; Earth Sciences New Zealand; National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) - New Zealand; Tsinghua University; Hainan Tropical Ocean University; Xiamen University; University of Vienna; Xiamen University; Thermo Fisher Scientific; National Research & Innovation Agency of Indonesia (BRIN); Chinese Academy of Sciences; Institute of Software, CAS
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.aea7086
• 发表日期: 2026-05-14
• 页码: 749-754
• 关键词: benthic foraminifera; CHALLENGER-DEEP; GROMIA PROTISTA; SEA; diversity; abundance; MARIANA; RDNA; phylogeny; EVOLUTION

摘要

Deep-sea hard substrates host faunal novelties and distinct evolutionary lineages. However, sessile organisms on rocks are difficult to sample and largely unknown at extreme hadal depths. Here, we report a deep hard-substrate fauna (9000 to 10,898 meters), comprising 32 species of six protist and metazoan phyla, most millimeter-sized and new to science, from the Kermadec and Mariana trenches, using the manned submersible Fendouzhe. We show that the filamentous organisms dominating these assemblages are heterotrophic foraminiferans, challenging the earlier chemolithoautotrophic hypothesis. Large-scale seafloor imaging and sampling suggest that similar protistan-dominated sessile communities thrive in seven hadal regions around Oceania. These faunas open new perspectives on biodiversity at the deepest ocean depths and unveil widespread, but previously unrecognized, carbon hotspots in global hadal trenches.