Does Presence of a Mid-Ocean Ridge Enhance Biomass and Biodiversity?
Figure 11
The relationship between depth and biomass.
Decrease in pelagic biomass (mg C.m−3) as a function of depth, back-calculated from the CoML global trend for benthic biomass (sloping line). At any given depth (indicated here by a dashed vertical line), the benthic biomass (mg C.m−2) is represented by the dark shaded area to the right and the total pelagic biomass above the sea floor from 800 m depth (mg C.m−2) by the paler shading to the left. Pelagic plus benthic biomass is hence constant.