“Habitats:
Hydrothermal Vents - Characteristics”
This article is no longer available online so an archived copy has been provided for your
reference. - SWS
Source:
U.S. Office of Naval Research
Web Site:
http://www.onr.navy.mil/focus/ocean/habitats/vents2.htm
Accessed:
May 26, 2014
Although hydrothermal vents are what we would
consider a harsh environment, they are teeming
(abundant) with life. As long as the vents remain active,
which is usually one to two years, animals thrive there.
In fact, more than 300 species live around the vents
and are unique to this type of environment. These
creatures, including tubeworms, fish, crabs, shrimp,
clams, anemones and chemosynthetic bacteria, have
learned to survive the complete darkness, the
extremely hot vent water and the tremendous water
Tubeworms in the Pacific Ocean
(courtesy of NURP)
pressure.
At such depths, sunlight is unable to penetrate and allow plants
to photosynthesize. Thus, they cannot be the basis of the food
chain as they are for us and for every other creature with which
we normally come in contact. Animals at these depths depend
on bacteria that are able to convert sulfur found in the vent's
fluids into energy through chemosynthesis. Larger animals then
eat the chemosynthetic bacteria or eat the animals that eat the
bacteria. In other vent creatures, the chemosynthetic bacteria
live inside their bodies. Some organisms, such as the
tubeworms, that live around the vents do not have a mouth or
Mussels, worms and spider crabs in a
seep community of the Gulf of Mexico. even a digestive tract as we do. The bacteria actually live inside
their bodies and provide nutrients directly to the organisms'
(courtesy of NURP)
tissues.
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