期刊
MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES
卷 515, 期 -, 页码 133-149出版社
INTER-RESEARCH
DOI: 10.3354/meps10955
关键词
Whale fall; Succession; Organic enrichment; Sulfide; Deep sea; Diversity; Chemoautrophy; Disturbance
资金
- HOV 'Alvin'
- RV 'Atlantis'
- ROV 'Tiburon'
- RV 'Western Flyer'
- CAPES
- CNPq (Brazil)
- Census of Diversity of Abyssal Marine Life
- EPA STAR Graduate Research Fellowship
- WHOI postdoctoral fellowship
- National Undersea Research Center Alaska, NOAA
- USA National Science Foundation, Biological Oceanography Program [OCE 0096422, 1155703]
- Division Of Ocean Sciences [1155703] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Whale falls cause massive organic and sulfide enrichment of underlying sediments, yielding energy-rich conditions in oligotrophic deep-sea ecosystems. While the fauna colonizing whale skeletons has received substantial study, sediment macrofaunal community response to the geochemical impacts of deep-sea whale falls remains poorly evaluated. We present a 7 yr case study of geochemical impacts, macrofaunal community succession, and chemoautotrophic community persistence in sediments around a 30 t gray-whale carcass implanted at 1675 m in the well-oxygenated Santa Cruz Basin on the California margin. The whale fall yielded intense, patchy organic-carbon enrichment (>15% organic carbon) and pore-water sulfide enhancement (>5 mM) in nearby sediments for 6 to 7 yr, supporting a dense assemblage of enrichment opportunists and chemosymbiotic vesicomyid clams. Faunal succession in the whale-fall sediments resembled the scavenger-opportunist-sulfophile sequence previously described for epifaunal communities on sunken whale skeletons. The intense response of enrichment opportunists functionally resembles responses to organic loading in shallow-water ecosystems, such as at sewer outfalls and fish farms. Of 100 macrofaunal species in the whale-fall sediments, 10 abundant species were unique to whale falls; 6 species were shared with cold seeps, 5 with hydrothermal vents, and 12 with nearby kelp and wood falls. Thus, whale-fall sediments may provide dispersal stepping stones for some generalized reducing-habitat species but also support distinct macrofaunal assemblages and contribute significantly to beta diversity in deep-sea ecosystems.
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