Template for Submission of Scientific Information to Describe Areas Meeting Scientific Criteria for

It is the major topographic feature of the Atlantic Ocean and the longest mountain range in the world, dominating the seafloor topography in the High Seas of the OSPAR region. [...] But more recently both the EU H2020 ATLAS and SPONGES projects have revealed some important aspects of the benthic communities inhabiting different habitats of the northern part of the MAR, highlighting the biological diversity, uniqueness, vulnerability, and the ecological importance of the MAR. [...] The MAR-ECO (Patterns and processes of the ecosystems of the northern Mid-Atlantic) (Bergstad & Godø, 2002) and its spin-off project ECOMAR (Ecosystem of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at the sub-polar front and Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone) (Priede et al., 2013) led to the many scientific papers published in the recent years. [...] These exciting discoveries, close to the shores of the Azores islands, highlight once again how little we know about the deep-sea of the MAR but also the ecological and biological importance of the area. [...] Title 18 The actual condition of the benthic communities of the North MAR is unknown due to the lack of baseline data for the region.