Commercial-scale mining for polymetallic nodules could have a major impact on the deep-sea environment, but the effects of these mining activities on deep-sea ecosystems are very poorly known. The first commercial test mining for polymetallic nodules was carried out in 1970. Since then a number of small-scale commercial test mining or scientific disturbance studies have been carried out. Here we evaluate changes in faunal densities and diversity of benthic communities measured in response to these 11 simulated or test nodule mining disturbances using meta-analysis techniques. We find that impacts are often severe immediately after mining, with major negative changes in density and diversity of most groups occurring. However, in some cases, the mobile fauna and small-sized fauna experienced less negative impacts over the longer term. At seven sites in the Pacific, multiple surveys assessed recovery in fauna over periods of up to 26 years. Almost all studies show some recovery in faunal density and diversity for meiofauna and mobile megafauna, often within one year. However, very few faunal groups return to baseline or control conditions after two decades. The effects of polymetallic nodule mining are likely to be long term. Our analyses show considerable negative biological effects of seafloor nodule mining, even at the small scale of test mining experiments, although there is variation in sensitivity amongst organisms of different sizes and functional groups, which have important implications for ecosystem responses. Unfortunately, many past studies have limitations that reduce their effectiveness in determining responses. We provide recommendations to improve future mining impact test studies. Further research to assess the effects of test-mining activities will inform ways to improve mining practices and guide effective environmental management of mining activities.

The cycling of carbon (C) by benthic organisms is a key ecosystem function in the deep sea. Pulse‐chase experiments are designed to quantify this process, yet few studies have been carried out using abyssal (3500–6000 m) sediments and only a handful of studies have been undertaken in situ. We undertook eight in situ pulse‐chase experiments in three abyssal strata (4050–4200 m water depth) separated by tens to hundreds of kilometers in the eastern Clarion‐Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCFZ). These experiments demonstrated that benthic bacteria dominated the consumption of phytodetritus over short (~ 1.5 d) time scales, with metazoan macrofauna playing a minor role. These results contrast with the only other comparable in situ abyssal study, where macrofauna dominated phytodetritus assimilation over short (2.5 d) time scales in the eutrophic NE Atlantic. We also demonstrated that benthic bacteria were capable of converting dissolved inorganic C into biomass and showed that this process can occur at rates that are as high as the bacterial assimilation of algal‐derived organic C. This demonstrates the potential importance of inorganic C uptake to abyssal ecosystems in this region. It also alludes to the possibility that some of the C incorporation by bacteria in our algal‐addition studies may have resulted from the incorporation of labeled dissolved inorganic carbon initially respired by other unstudied organisms. Our findings reveal the key importance of benthic bacteria in the short‐term cycling of C in abyssal habitats in the eastern CCFZ and provide important information on benthic ecosystem functioning in an area targeted for commercial‐scale, deep‐sea mining activities.

Future deep-sea mining for polymetallic nodules in abyssal plains will negatively impact the benthic ecosystem, but it is largely unclear whether this ecosystem will be able to recover from mining disturbance and if so, to what extent and at what timescale. During the “DISturbance and reCOLonization” (DISCOL) experiment, a total of 22 % of the seafloor within a 10.8 km² circular area of the nodule-rich seafloor in the Peru Basin (SE Pacific) was ploughed in 1989 to bury nodules and mix the surface sediment. This area was revisited 0.1, 0.5, 3, 7, and 26 years after the disturbance to assess macrofauna, invertebrate megafauna and fish density and diversity. We used this unique abyssal faunal time series to develop carbon-based food web models for each point in the time series using the linear inverse modeling approach for sediments subjected to two disturbance levels: (1) outside the plough tracks; not directly disturbed by plough, but probably suffered from additional sedimentation; and (2) inside the plough tracks. Total faunal carbon stock was always higher outside plough tracks compared with inside plough tracks. After 26 years, the carbon stock inside the plough tracks was 54 % of the carbon stock outside plough tracks. Deposit feeders were least affected by the disturbance, with modeled respiration, external predation, and excretion rates being reduced by only 2.6 % inside plough tracks compared with outside plough tracks after 26 years. In contrast, the respiration rate of filter and suspension feeders was 79.5 % lower in the plough tracks after 26 years. The “total system throughput” (T..), i.e., the total sum of modeled carbon flows in the food web, was higher throughout the time series outside plough tracks compared with the corresponding inside plough tracks area and was lowest inside plough tracks directly after the disturbance (8.63 × 10⁻³ ± 1.58 × 10⁻⁵ mmol C m⁻² d⁻¹). Even 26 years after the DISCOL disturbance, the discrepancy of T.. between outside and inside plough tracks was still 56 %. Hence, C cycling within the faunal compartments of an abyssal plain ecosystem remains reduced 26 years after physical disturbance, and a longer period is required for the system to recover from such a small-scale sediment disturbance experiment.

Polymetallic nodule fields provide hard substrate for sessile organisms on the abyssal seafloor between 3000 and 6000 m water depth. Deep-seabed mining targets these mineral-rich nodules and will likely modify the consumer-resource (trophic) and substrate-providing (non-trophic) interactions within the abyssal food web. However, the importance of nodules and their associated sessile fauna in supporting food-web integrity remains unclear. Here, we use seafloor imagery and published literature to develop highly-resolved trophic and non-trophic interaction webs for the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCZ, central Pacific Ocean) and the Peru Basin (PB, South-East Pacific Ocean) and to assess how nodule removal may modify these networks. The CCZ interaction web included 1028 compartments connected with 59,793 links and the PB interaction web consisted of 342 compartments and 8044 links. We show that knock-down effects of nodule removal resulted in a 17.9% (CCZ) to 20.8% (PB) loss of all taxa and 22.8% (PB) to 30.6% (CCZ) loss of network links. Subsequent analysis identified stalked glass sponges living attached to the nodules as key structural species that supported a high diversity of associated fauna. We conclude that polymetallic nodules are critical for food-web integrity and that their absence will likely result in reduced local benthic biodiversity.

Sediment community oxygen consumption (SCOC) rates provide important information about biogeochemical processes in marine sediments and the activity of benthic microorganisms and fauna. Therefore, several databases of SCOC data have been compiled since the mid-1990s. However, these earlier databases contained much less data records and were not freely available. Additionally, the databases were not transparent in their selection procedure, so that other researchers could not assess the quality of the data. Here, we present the largest, best documented, and freely available database of SCOC data compiled to date. The database is comprised of 3,540 georeferenced SCOC records from 230 studies that were selected following the procedure for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Each data record states whether the oxygen consumption was measured ex situ or in situ, as total oxygen uptake, diffusive or advective oxygen uptake, and which measurement device was used. The database will be curated and updated annually to secure and maintain an up-to-date global database of SCOC data.