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Looking beyond the vent to the environmental seascapes shaping deep-sea hydrothermal ecosystems
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  • Published: 22 April 2026

Looking beyond the vent to the environmental seascapes shaping deep-sea hydrothermal ecosystems

  • Abbie S. A. Chapman1,2,
  • Joan M. Alfaro-Lucas3,
  • Stace E. Beaulieu4,
  • Ana Colaço5,
  • Andrey Gebruk6,
  • Ivan D. Haigh2,
  • Ana Hilario7,
  • John W. Jamieson8,
  • Terue C. Kihara9,
  • Jozée Sarrazin10,
  • Verena Tunnicliffe11 &
  • …
  • Amanda E. Bates2,3 

Scientific Reports (2026) Cite this article

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We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.

Subjects

  • Biodiversity
  • Ecosystem ecology
  • Geology
  • Machine learning
  • Marine biology
  • Marine chemistry
  • Physical oceanography

Abstract

To manage and protect marine ecosystems, we first need a spatialised knowledge of the seascape-scale processes surrounding them. However, we lack spatially explicit understanding of how regional processes influence biological patterns in many marine systems. This is especially true of remote marine ecosystems, such as those in the deep sea. Here, we conceptualise potential seascape-scale environmental influences on deep-sea hydrothermal vent ecosystems, guided by experts and literature. We propose environmental characteristics that may shape local biodiversity patterns, such as community structure, habitat availability, and temporal stability. Next, we develop pipelines from data extraction to analysis to improve spatial data accessibility and investigate which variables can be used to draw similarities among vent fields. Finally, we group vents from different regions according to shared environmental characteristics. We show that vents that are spatially isolated and have different species pools can share similar environmental characteristics across ocean basins, including geological, oceanographic, and biological dynamics. We thus illustrate how large-scale environmental data can be used to compare seascape attributes across remote, island-like vent ecosystems. We suggest that looking beyond local scales to consider how seascapes both influence and distinguish different vent systems within a global setting is important for conservation and macroecological contexts.

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Data availability

The data used in this manuscript were openly available for download, as described and cited in the methods and Supplementary Materials. The processed data are available from https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.31558687. We also provide a list of data sources, so others can access and use these for their ecosystems of interest. We provide the R code used to generate the results presented in this study at https://github.com/abbiesachapman/vent_seascapes. We link our extracted data (via vent-field identifiers) to the InterRidge Vents Database (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.917894), to ensure the data are user-friendly and can be used in conjunction with this resource.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank members of iDiv and its Synthesis Centre—sDiv: Doreen Brückner, Jes Hines, Borja Jiménez-Alfaro, Ingolf Kühn and Marten Winter, as well as sFDvent working group member Eva Ramirez-Llodra. We acknowledge and thank Megan Davies for their re-design of Figure 1 during the revision of this manuscript. We would also like to thank Robert Cooke, Jon Copley, Adrian Glover, Jasmine Godbold, Huw Griffiths, Sam Southgate, Rose Stainthorp, and Conor Waldock for their support and advice. Thank you to Maria Baker and Daphne Cuvelier for sharing data from the ChEss project. Thanks to the families of ‘sFDvent’ working group members for their support while they were participating in meetings at iDiv in Germany. Financial support for sFDvent working group meetings was gratefully received from sDiv, the Synthesis Centre of iDiv (DFG FZT 118). ASAC completed part of this work as a PhD candidate funded by the SPITFIRE Doctoral Training Partnership (supported by NERC, grant number: NE/L002531/1, and the University of Southampton), with the remainder completed as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Global Challenges Research Fund, ‘Sentinel’ project: ES/P011306/1; Wellcome Trust ‘Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS)’ programme: 205200; and Wellcome Trust ‘Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems—Southern Africa (SHEFS-SA)’ project: 227749/Z/23/Z) at University College London. Thanks to Tim Newbold and Carole Dalin for supporting this. AC is supported by Program Investigador (IF/00029/2014/CP1230/CT0002) from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) and through strategic project UIDP/ 05634/2023 and UIDB / 05634/2023. AG in part was funded by the State assignment of Minobrnauki Russia (theme Nr FMWE-2024-0022). AH is supported by Portuguese national funds through Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia I.P., under the project/grant UID/50006 + LA/P/0094/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0094/2020). SB was funded by U.S. National Science Foundation OCE-1829773. TCK received support from the INDEX exploration project for marine polymetallic sulphides by the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. JMA-L was supported through institutional funds from the University of Victoria awarded as part of AEB’s Impact Chair position. VT and AEB are sponsored through the Canada Research Chairs Programme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Abbie S. A. Chapman

  2. Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, National Oceanography Centre Southampton, University of Southampton Waterfront Campus, European Way, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK

    Abbie S. A. Chapman, Ivan D. Haigh & Amanda E. Bates

  3. Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

    Joan M. Alfaro-Lucas & Amanda E. Bates

  4. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 266 Woods Hole Road, Woods Hole, MA, 02543, USA

    Stace E. Beaulieu

  5. Institute of Marine Sciences - OKEANOS, University of the Azores, Rua Professor Doutor Frederico Machado 4, 9900-140, Horta, Portugal

    Ana Colaço

  6. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nakhimovsky Pr., 36, Moscow, Russia, 117997

    Andrey Gebruk

  7. Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies & Department of Biology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Ana Hilario

  8. Department of Earth Sciences, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL, A1B 3X5, Canada

    John W. Jamieson

  9. INES Integrated Environmental Solutions UG, Südstrand 44, 26382, Wilhelmshaven, Germany

    Terue C. Kihara

  10. Univ Brest, Ifremer, BEEP, 29280, Plouzané, France

    Jozée Sarrazin

  11. School of Earth & Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2, Canada

    Verena Tunnicliffe

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Contributions

This manuscript was conceptualised at the Synthesis Centre of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (sDiv, iDiv). An sFDvent working group (AEB, ASAC, SEB, AC, AG, AH, TCK, JS and VT) identified initial variables for consideration. AEB, ASAC, and VT narrowed down the variable list using available literature and expert knowledge before ASAC compiled, cleaned and processed data (tidal data processed and provided by IH), conducted the analyses, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the writing and editing of the manuscript, with senior author AEB, and JMA-L, VT, and JJ, contributing significantly to the writing and editing process. All authors checked and edited and/or approved the recommended dataset and manuscript.

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Correspondence to Abbie S. A. Chapman.

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Chapman, A.S.A., Alfaro-Lucas, J.M., Beaulieu, S.E. et al. Looking beyond the vent to the environmental seascapes shaping deep-sea hydrothermal ecosystems. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-44060-z

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  • Received: 27 March 2025

  • Accepted: 09 March 2026

  • Published: 22 April 2026

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-44060-z

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Keywords

  • Deep-sea hydrothermal vents
  • Environmental variability
  • Geospatial
  • Machine learning
  • Open data
  • Seascape
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