![Nekton submersible crews and support personnel deployed on the Maldives deep-sea research expedition (Photo: Nekton)](http://media.assettype.com/bairdmaritime%2Fimport%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FAquanauts-and-support-crews-Photo-Nekton1.jpg?w=480&auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max)
An alliance of international partners has completed a systematic survey of ocean life in the Maldives, covering an area between the surface of the Indian Ocean to depths of as much as 1,000 metres.
The University of Oxford said the effort will enable the Maldivian government to develop conservation and sustainable development policies for the benefit of the Maldivian people. Almost nothing is known about what is below 30 metres, the vast majority of the country.
The Nekton Maldives Mission deployed two advanced human-crewed submersibles, robotic and autonomous systems, and more than a dozen research technologies. The university said this makes it one of the most technically varied and advanced missions ever undertaken in the Indian Ocean.
Lucy Woodall, Associate Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Oxford and Principal Scientist at Nekton, led the international science team. Associate Professor Woodall said collaborations of this nature allow expeditions to be designed around the needs of a country, hence enabling the gathering of the necessary information for that country's officials to make important decisions around conservation and marine protection. She added that this particular expedition will lead to the development of themes of important research priorities by capturing information such as environmental parameters and benthic mapping, which was done for the first time in this area of the world.
Coordinated and managed by Nekton, a not-for-profit research institute based at Begbroke Science Park in Oxford, the expedition is an international endeavour, involving an alliance of 40 organisations with a scientific team drawn from the Maldives, UK, Seychelles, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Spain, Greece, Netherlands, and Ireland. Ten Maldivian marine scientists have been selected to be the first Maldivian aquanauts to lead over 30 descents in the mission's submersibles.
Specific aims of the project include the following:
A number of seagoing assets supplied by various partner organisations were deployed for the expedition:
The other key pieces of equipment are multi-beam mapping sensors, baited remote underwater video systems, conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) measuring sensors, and specialised nets for sampling for zooplankton, which Nekton said is essential to the marine food web.
Conducted in September and October 2022, the Nekton Maldives Mission is now focused on preparing its findings for publication. The first results from the expedition are scheduled to be published in the middle of this year.