The deep sea is the last frontier on Earth. Yet at a time of unprecedented global change this frontier is under increasing pressure from human activities. Between 2016 and 2020 the ATLAS project worked across the North Atlantic to improve our understanding of complex deep-sea ecosystems in a changing ocean. ATLAS assembled the interdisciplinary expertise spanning social and natural sciences, environmental economics, policy and governance needed not only to develop new knowledge but to bring this straight to those shaping ocean policies at national, regional and international levels.
“As the birthplace of deep-sea biology and the cradle of oceanography, the North Atlantic is the place we should know best, but only in the last 20 years have we uncovered how varied and vulnerable its deep-sea habitats really are.”
J Murray Roberts, ATLAS Co-ordinator.
The work of ATLAS continues through the H2020 iAtlantic Project (2019-23). Follow the link to know more about iAtlantic work in the North and South Atlantic
ATLAS Key Achievements
- 133 Peer-reviewed publications, including 1 Nature, 1 Science, 1 in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, and 2 Global Change Biology publications
- 53 Peer-reviewed publications in preparation/under review
- Dedicated Frontiers in Marine Science Research Topic ‘Managing deep-sea ecosystems at ocean basin scale’ initiated by ATLAS with 28 papers published by end 2020
- 45 Offshore research expeditions
- 72 researchers and 10 PhD students employed
- 23 workshops held covering Deep-sea Species Distribution Modelling (Montreal, Canada); Modelling Connectivity (Edinburgh, UK); Conservation Management Issues (Montpellier, France); Good Environmental Status (Mallorca, Spain); Science, Policy & Blue Growth (Southampton, UK); Supporting Blue Growth (Dublin, Ireland)
- ATLAS media reach estimated at over 400 million with coverage including BBC (Radio and TV), Sky News, The Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Guardian, Deutsche Welle and NPR podcast
- ATLAS results have reached approximately 2.05M in policy, 2.07M in industry and over 2.13M members of the scientific community
- ATLAS won the 2020 Atlantic Project Award from the European Commission for ‘Developing International Cooperation’