Аннотация:From fifty-four dredge hauls between the 10- and 165-m depths in Hawaii twenty-one benthic algal species, mostly minute red algae, have been added to the Hawaiian flora. While 101 species are reported, no distinctive deep water flora, zonation or dominance by one phylum was found; however, some algae do seem to be deep water species. Animal and algal communities tend to be mutually exclusive with respect to dominance. The proportion of siphonous Chlorophyta is far less than in the Caribbean or the Pacific further west, and the lack of an appropriate biological habitat appears to be a factor relating to the low number of species found and to their paucity of absolute biomass. Substratum, biogeographic factors as well as motion and fertilizer content of the water, are postulated as significant in determining what species will be found at a given deep water site or, above their compensation depth, their presence at a given depth. In addition, it is felt that there is evidence that random variation in compensation points among the species is responsible for the exponential decline in number of species as a function of depth.
