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"This is a demonstration on how an interdisciplinary team could work collaboratively to provide an enormous amount of new information on deep-sea life after one brief encounter. The ultimate goal is to continue down this path and refine the technology to be as minimally-invasive as possible -- akin to a doctor's check-up in the deep sea! This approach is becoming increasingly important with current extinction being 100 times higher than background extinction rates."

This turnover relies on what scientists consider a normal or background extinction rate.

Twenty extinctions per year — out of almost two million known species — is ten times higher than the background extinction rate of two per year that existed before humans made a notable contribution to extinctions.

Ceballos said that his study, co-authored by Paul R Ehrlich who famously warned of the impact of humanity’s “population bomb”, employed better knowledge of natural or so-called background extinction rates.

We are currently in the midst of what scientists consider the sixth mass extinction in planetary history, with between 150 and 200 species going extinct daily, a pace 1,000 times greater than the “natural” or “background” extinction rate.