Ecologists at the University of Cologne's Institute of Zoology have for the first time demonstrated the enormously high and also very specific species diversity of the deep sea in a comparison of 20 deep-sea basins in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Over a period of 20 years, a research team led by Professor Dr. Hartmut Arndt at the Institute of Zoology has compiled a body of data that for the first time allows for a comparison of the diversity of existing eukaryotes—organisms with a cell nucleus. Sediment samples from depths of 4000 to 8350 meters, the cultivation and sequencing of populations found exclusively in the deep sea, and finally molecular analysis using high-throughput techniques are yielding a comprehensive picture of biodiversity in the deep sea. The research results have been published in Communications Biology under the title "High and specific diversity of protists in the deep-sea basins dominated by diplonemids, kinetoplastids, ciliates and foraminiferans."