Memoria de tesis doctoral presentada por Samuele Tecchio para optar al grado de Doctor en Biodiversidad por la Universitat de Barcelona (UB), realizada bajo la dirección del Dr. Francisco Sardà Amills y de la Dra. Eva Zoe Ramírez Llodra del Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC).-- 138 pagesThe deep sea is the portion of the ocean that stands below 200 m depth, both in the water column and in the benthos (Gage & Tyler 1991). It is the largest biome of planet Earth, with about 90% of the ocean area being deep sea (Ramírez-Llodra et al. 2010a). In the past decades, researchers have loved to refrain that “we know more about the surface of the Moon than about our deep oceans”. To date, this still holds true. The deep sea is considered impenetrable, difficult and expensive to reach and observe. [...]The author has been financed by a JAE pre-doctoral grant from the Spanish Research Council (CSIC), from December 2008 to November 2012. This work has been carried out in the framework of the following research projects:
- BIOFUN (CTM2007-28739-E), from the European Science
Foundation (ESF);
- PROMETEO (CTM2007-66316-C02/MAR), from the
CYCIT, Spain;
- HERMIONE (G.A. 226354), from the European UnionPeer reviewe