Our knowledge of the biodiversity of the Southern Ocean (SO) deep benthos is scarce.

Here we show that sponges have the greatest influence on the dynamics of the Antarctic benthos.

Presence of habitat complexity, however, dampened the strength of this temperature effect on the abundance of macroinvertebrates in the benthos.

The great majority of algae, however, grow like land-plants attached to a substratum, and to these the term benthos is now generally applied.