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Little is known about diversity patterns of biological assemblages in deep-sea environments, primarily because sampling deep-sea biota over vast areas is time consuming, difficult, and costly. In contrast, physical mapping capabilities are increasing rapidly, and are becoming more cost-effective. Consequently, the growing need to manage and conserve marine resources, particularly deep-sea areas that are sensitive to anthropogenic disturbance and change, is leading the promotion of physical data as surrogates to predict biological assemblages. However, few studies have directly examined the predictive ability of these surrogates. The physical environment and biological assemblages were surveyed for two adjacent areas – the western flank of Lord Howe Rise (LHR) and the Gifford Guyot - spanning combined water depths of 250-2200m depth on the northern part of the LHR, in the Coral Sea. Multibeam …