Biogeography and depth partitioning in deep‐sea gastropods at the Pacific Costa Rica Margin

Understanding the global distribution of biodiversity and the factors that influence it are among the central goals of biogeography. How abiotic and biotic factors limit species' ranges has been investigated across a variety of environments and taxonomic groups. However, such investigations across oceanic depths remain underrepresented, particularly for chemosynthetic environments such as hydrocarbon seeps. The depth differentiation (DD) hypothesis suggests that steep environmental gradients in the upper depths of the ocean may limit species' ranges over relatively short vertical distances. The present study aims to investigate the evidence for the DD hypothesis at hydrocarbon seep sites along the Pacific Costa Rica Margin (CRM) by investigating the biogeographic distributions of gastropods sampled there and the factors that influence them.