Growing human activity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) is driving increasing impacts on the biodiversity of this vast area of the ocean. As a result, the United Nations General Assembly committed to convening a series of intergovernmental conferences (IGCs) to develop an international legally-binding instrument (ILBI) for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of ABNJ [the biodiversity...

With anthropogenic impacts rapidly advancing into deeper waters, there is growing interest in establishing deep‐sea marine protected areas ( MPA s) or reserves. Reserve design depends on estimates of connectivity and scales of dispersal for the taxa of interest. Deep‐sea taxa are hypothesized to disperse greater distances than shallow‐water taxa, which implies that reserves would need to be larger in size and networks could be...

Aim Three‐quarters of Octocorallia species are found in deep waters. These cold‐water octocoral colonies can form a major constituent of structurally complex habitats. The global distribution and the habitat requirements of deep‐sea octocorals are poorly understood given the expense and difficulties of sampling at depth. Habitat suitability models are useful tools to extrapolate distributions and provide an understanding of ec...

Cold‐water stony corals create habitat for a diverse range of deep‐water species but are thought to be threatened by ocean acidification due to oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO 2 . Knowledge of the severity of this threat is hampered by our limited understanding of the distribution and habitat requirements of these corals. Here we estimate the global acidification threat to these organisms using a global database of cold‐wat...

Aim Globally, species distribution patterns in the deep sea are poorly resolved, with spatial coverage being sparse for most taxa and true absence data missing. Increasing human impacts on deep‐sea ecosystems mean that reaching a better understanding of such patterns is becoming more urgent. Cold‐water stony corals (Order Scleractinia) form structurally complex habitats (dense thickets or reefs) that can support a diversity of...