Can cutting down forests affect deep water fish?

In a word, yes. A marine ecologist in New Zealand has won a top award by showing how deforestation has affected marine ecosystems such as cutting down of the once intact rainforest in the country's South Island. As this latest research shows, not only do forests regulate the climate but also provide for plant and animal species in the water as well as on land.

The hagfish lives in deep water off the coastal forests and feeds on worms found at the bottom of the sea floor. These worms in turn live off decomposing biological material that comes from sunken wood and leaves - rivers flowing through the rainforests act as natural pathways for dead wood and leaves to be transported to the sea.

The decayed wood produces hydrogen sulphide which is used as an energy source by bacteria, which then enter the food chain via worms on which marine life such as the hagfish feed on. So a complex chemical breakdown ensures that dead wood and other organic material is converted into food that sustains life under water.

With so much deforestation happening around the world, marine animals such as the hagfish (and others including blue cod and rock lobsters) are at risk of having their food supplies cut off.