News Ecosystems

Deep-Sea Cukes Can’t Avoid the Weather: El Niño changes life 2.5 miles down

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

Even though the water now deep in the ocean won’t mingle with upper layers for hundreds of years, topside climate still drives the short-term booms and busts of bottom dwellers.

LOW LIFE. The sea cucumber Scotoplanes globosa, a species with appendages, lives miles below the ocean surface but grew more abundant after an El Niño and a La Niña.