The contribution of benthic ecology to biological oceanography has been relatively slight, even though the benthos may be crucial in understanding the dynamics of marine ecosystems, as J. H. Steele’s model of the North Sea indicates. Before the benthos may be accurately assigned a role in such models, we need to know at least 1) what food items are consumed and assimilated, 2) what the role of bacteria and meiobenthos may be, and 3) if there are different levels of demersal fish production from differently structured benthic communities. There seem to be no shortcuts to the kind of information about benthic animals useful in permitting assessment of fisheries production in a realistic biological framework.