Imprint of past environmental regimes on structure and succession of a deep-sea hydrothermal vent community |
| |
Authors: | Lauren S Mullineaux Fiorenza Micheli Charles H Peterson Hunter S Lenihan Nilauro Markus |
| |
Institution: | (1) Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, MS34, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA;(2) Stanford University, Hopkins Marine Station, Pacific Grove, CA 93950, USA;(3) Institute of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Morehead City, NC 28557, USA;(4) Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5131, USA;(5) Version3 Inc, 5345 Madison Ave, Sacramento, CA 95841, USA |
| |
Abstract: | Dramatic perturbations of ecological communities through rapid shifts in environmental regime do not always result in complete
mortality of residents. Instead, legacy individuals may remain and influence the succession and composition of subsequent
communities. We used a reciprocal transplant experiment to investigate whether a legacy effect is detectable in communities
experiencing an abrupt increase or decrease in hydrothermal fluid flux at deep-sea vents. Vent habitats are characterized
by strong gradients in productivity and physico-chemical stressors, both of which tend to increase with increasing vent fluid
flux. In our experiments, many species survived transplantation from cool (water temperatures <2°C above ambient) to warm
(4–30°C above ambient) habitats, resulting in significantly higher species richness on transplanted than remaining experimental
substrata. A legacy effect was much less apparent in transplantation from warm to cool habitat, although a few vestimentiferan
tubeworms, normally restricted to warm habitat, survived transplantation. The asymmetry in influence of legacy individuals
suggests that productivity enhancement may outweigh potential physiological stress in setting limits to distributions of vent
invertebrates. This influence of biological processes contrasts with theory developed in the rocky intertidal that predicts
the predominance of physical control at the high-stress end of an environmental gradient. Prediction of successional transitions
in vents and other habitats experiencing regime shifts in which remnant species may survive must take into account the possible
influence of historical effects. |
| |
Keywords: | Benthic community structure Vestimentiferan tubeworm East Pacific Rise Reciprocal transplant Legacy species |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|