The food web of a deep sea vent or "black smoker", starts as stated above-- with chemosynthesis. Whereas many organisms would be killed by the toxic soup of chemicals and minerals that the vents emit, chemosynthetic bacteria thrive on it. They are the base of the ecosystem's whole food web. Next, tubeworms have these bacteria living inside of them, and through a symbiotic relationship, receive energy that the bacteria make. The bacteria also are provided a home. The tubeworms end one branch of the food web, so lets move on to another. Organisms like shrimp, mussels and snails
Here is another link:http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/biology/ventbio-infomod.html
This is specifically about the food web. The rest of the site this links to also has other interesting areas to explore. =D |
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