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With a mounting imperative to advance stewardship strategies that consider the special features of the deep ocean and ensure that this biome serves future generations, we must promote long-term, deep-ocean sustainability through precaution, knowledge creation, and governance development.

Visual acuity (the ability to resolve spatial detail) is highly variable across fishes. However, little is known about the evolutionary pressures underlying this variation. We reviewed published literature to create an acuity database for 159 species of ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii). Within a subset of those species for which we had phylogenetic information and anatomically measured acuity data (n=81), we examined relationships between acuity and both morphological (eye size and body size) and ecological (light level, water turbidity, habitat spatial complexity and diet) variables. Acuity was significantly correlated with eye size (P<0.001); a weaker correlation with body size occurred via a correlation between eye and body size (P<0.001). Acuity decreased as light level decreased and turbidity increased; however, these decreases resulted from fishes in dark or murky environments having smaller eyes and bodies than those in bright or clear environments. We also found significantly lower acuity in horizon-dominated habitats than in featureless or complex habitats. Higher acuity in featureless habitats is likely due to species having absolutely larger eyes and bodies in that environment, though eye size relative to body size is not significantly different from that in complex environments. Controlling for relative eye size, we found that species in complex environments have even higher acuity than predicted. We found no relationship between visual acuity and diet. Our results show that eye size is a primary factor underlying variation in fish acuity. We additionally show that habitat type is an important ecological factor that correlates with acuity in certain species.

Applications of acoustic and optical sensing and intensive, discrete-depth sampling, in concert with collaborative international research programmes, have substantially advanced knowledge of pelagic ecosystems in the 17 years since the 1996 Deepwater Fishes Symposium of the Fisheries Society of the British Isles. Although the epipelagic habitat is the best-known, and remote sensing and high-resolution modelling allow near-synoptic investigation of upper layer biophysical dynamics, ecological studies within the mesopelagic and deep-demersal habitats have begun to link lower and upper trophic level processes. Bathypelagic taxonomic inventories are far from complete, but recent projects (e.g. MAR-ECO and CMarZ, supported by the Census of Marine Life programme) have quantitatively strengthened distribution patterns previously described for fishes and have provided new perspectives. Synthesis of net and acoustic studies suggests that the biomass of deep-pelagic fishes may be two to three orders of magnitude greater than the total global commercial fisheries landings. Discrete-depth net sampling has revealed relatively high pelagic fish biomass below 1000 m in some regions, and that gelatinous zooplankton may be key energy vectors for deep-pelagic fish production. Lastly, perhaps, the most substantive paradigm shift is that vertical connectivity among fishes across classical depth zones is prevalent- suggesting that a whole-water column approach is warranted for deep ocean conservation and management.

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