Ocean biodiversity loss is being driven by several anthropogenic threats and significant efforts are required to halt losses and promote healthy marine ecosystems. The establishment of a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) can help restrict damaging activities and have been recognised as a potential solution to aid marine conservation. When managed correctly they can deliver both ecological and socio-economic benefits. In...

Vertical walls of submarine canyons represent features of high conservation value that can provide natural areas of protection for vulnerable marine ecosystems under increasing anthropogenic pressure from deep-sea trawling. Wall assemblages are spatially heterogeneous, attributed to the high environmental heterogeneity over short spatial scales that is a typical feature of canyons. Effective management and conservation of thes...

Benthic fauna form spatial patterns which are the result of both biotic and abiotic processes, which can be quantified with a range of landscape ecology descriptors. Fine- to medium-scale spatial patterns (<1–10 m) have seldom been quantified in deep-sea habitats, but can provide fundamental ecological insights into species’ niches and interactions. Cold-water coral reefs formed by Desmophyllum pertusum (syn. Lophelia pertusa...

Beaufort's Dyke is a submarine depression located in the North Channel of the Irish Sea. With a maximum depth of 312 m, the dyke is one of the deepest areas within the European continental shelf. Integration and interpretation of 450 km of sparker seismic data and full‐coverage bathymetric data derived from multi‐beam echo sounder surveys allow for the investigation of the formation processes of Beaufort's Dyke and the evoluti...