Despite its conceptual importance, predation as an organizing force in deep-sea communities is essentially unstudied. Although a variety of species are known to be predators in the deep sea, the large, motile epifauna are the focus of this study because they should be important predators and some species appear to be susceptible to experimental manipulations with cages. The research consists of two parts. The present proposal requests support to investigate cage performance in the deep sea. With the knowledge gained, we will propose a follow-up investigation of predator effects by conducting experiments sufficiency free of cage. The results of these investigations should be widely applicable because large, motile epifauna occur in most deep-sea communities.
