The Size‐Depth Relationship in Deep Ocean Animals

In response to Thiel's (1975). hypothesis that the food-limited deep sea is a small organism habitat, further data on average size of individuals representing various deep-sea taxa are presented. Our data were gathered with trawls and box corers between 200 and 5000 meters, in the western North Atlantic. For echinoderms, decapods and macrofauna there appears to be no steady, logarithmic decline in size with increasing depth, but fishes are bigger – deeper.