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. Industrial interest in deep-sea mineral extraction began decades ago, andtoday it is at an all-time high, accelerated by global demand for metals.Several seafloor ecosystem disturbance experiments began in the 1970s,including the Disturbance and Recolonization experiment (DISCOL) conductedin the Peru Basin in 1989. A large seafloor disturbance was created byrepeatedly ploughing the seafloor over an area of ∼10.8 km2. Though a number of studies in abyssal mining regions haveevaluated megafaunal biodiversity and ecosystem responses, few have includedquantitative and detailed data on fishes or scavengers despite theirecological importance as top predators. We used towed camera transects(1989–1996, 2015) and baited camera data (1989–1992) to evaluate the fishcommunity at the DISCOL site. The abyssal fish community included 16 taxaand was dominated by Ipnops meadi. Fish density was lower in ploughed habitat at 6 months and 3 years following disturbance but thereafter increased over time.Twenty-six years after disturbance there were no differences in overall totalfish densities between reference and experimental areas, but the dominantfish, I. meadi, still exhibited much lower densities in ploughed habitat, likelyavoiding these areas and suggesting that the fish community remains affectedafter decades. At the scale of industrial mining, these results couldtranslate to population-level effects. The scavenging community wasdominated by eelpouts (Pachycara spp.), hermit crabs (Probeebei mirabilis) and shrimp. The largecontribution of hermit crabs appears to be unique amongst abyssal scavengerstudies worldwide. The abyssal fish community at DISCOL was similar to thatin the more northerly Clarion–Clipperton Zone (CCZ), though some species have onlybeen observed at DISCOL thus far. Also, further species-levelidentifications are required to refine this assessment. Additional studiesacross the polymetallic nodule provinces of the Pacific are required tofurther evaluate the environmental drivers of fish density, diversity andspecies biogeographies. This information will be important for thedevelopment of appropriate management plans aimed at minimizing human impactfrom deep-sea mining.

Observations of deep-sea fishes and mobile scavengers from the abyssal DISCOL experimental mining area