An international group of scientists, in which the researcher Ariadna Mechó, from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, has participated, has discovered more than half a hundred potentially new species for science in the underwater mountains off the coast of Chile.
The expedition of the Schmidt Ocean Institute (USA) made it possible to identify deep-sea corals, glass sponges, sea urchins, squid, fish, molluscs, crabs, starfish and other species never before observed by scientists. The find took place in the Dorsal de Sales i Gómez seamounts, a remote and little-explored area that stretches from the coast of Chile to Rapa Nui (Easter Island). "We have found an intact ecosystem, which we can study before it can degrade and disappear", declares the researcher.
Mechó, from the BSC's Earth Sciences department, presented the results at the Ocean Decade Conference in Barcelona. In this campaign, between 50 and 60 potentially new species have been found with the naked eye, although "this number will probably increase when we work through all the samples we have in the laboratory", he said. They have also found one of the deepest mesophotic (shallow water and low light) corals in the world, which extends the distribution of this Polynesian fauna by several hundred kilometers. "And in depth, we have found fields of sponges and corals, habitats considered vulnerable and in need of protection", stated Mechó.
The researcher is a biologist who works with climate models, which allows her to study the future distribution of species based on temperature ranges. She believes that it is a field with a long way to go and that it will also allow her BSC supercomputing expert colleagues to apply their knowledge in this field in a practical way.
The expedition was carried out between February 24 and April 4 with a team of 25 scientists from 14 organizations in five countries (Chile, USA, Italy, Spain and Holland). The information gathered by this scientific expedition will provide the basis for informing the management of existing marine protected areas and potentially expanding them, especially around the island of Rapa Nui. The underwater range is 2,900 km long and includes more than 200 underwater mountains from the coast of Chile to Rapa Nui (Easter Island).
The Dorsal de Sales i Gómez is one of the most unique and biodiverse marine landscapes on Earth, with a very high rate of endemism, critical habitats for benthic organisms, essential migratory corridors for highly mobile species and the presence of more than 80 threatened or endangered species. "We need to better understand the biodiversity and connectivity of the region to know which species are there and on which mountains exactly, as well as the possible changes in the faunal communities", assured Mechó.
The mission also seeks to provide the necessary information to support the designation of the Dorsal de Sales i Gómez as a marine area of ecological and biological importance in the Convention on Biological Diversity. This expedition was preceded by a previous campaign between January and February 2024 focused on the study of the union between Sales and Gómez and the Nazca Ridge with the Desventurades Islands. In the two campaigns more than 100 new species have been discovered.
