Deep-Sea Fauna Segmentation: A Comparative Analysis of Convolutional and Vision Transformer Architectures at Lucky Strike Vent Field

The Main Endeavour vent field, a Marine Protected Area, is a target site for the cabled observatory Ocean Networks Canada, providing unprecedented opportunities to better understand vent ecosystem functioning. We report the diversity and food webs of six faunal communities associated with siboglinid tubeworms of the Grotto edifice. Better knowledge of the ecological functioning of these communities will help in assessing the role of the MPA as a management tool for hydrothermal vents ecosystems.