What is the hydrothermal vent food web?
The hydrothermal vent food web below has four layers: Primary producers are the original source of food in the vent ecosystem, using chemical energy to create organic molecules. Because they are separated from the primary food production by several layers, top order carnivores have the smallest biomass in the food web.
What is the process at hydrothermal vents?
Hydrothermal vents are the result of seawater percolating down through fissures in the ocean crust in the vicinity of spreading centers or subduction zones (places on Earth where two tectonic plates move away or towards one another). The cold seawater is heated by hot magma and reemerges to form the vents.
How do hydrothermal vents get their food?
Hydrothermal vent microbes include bacteria and archaea, the most ancient forms of life. These microbes form the base of the food chain at hydrothermal vents. They are chemo-autotrophic, which means they make their own food through a process called chemosynthesis.
What process is the basis of the food web at a vent?
For example, microbes living in hydrothermal vent communities are able to use inorganic chemical compounds through a process known as chemosynthesis to create energy. These chemosynthetic microbes are the foundation of the food web in hydrothermal vent communities.
What do hydrothermal vent animals eat?
They eat everything from tubeworms to shrimp. Despite their huge appetites, these fish are slow and lethargic. They spend a lot of time floating around clumps of tube worms and mussels. Clams colonize hydrothermal vents later than mussels.
What animals are found in hydrothermal vents?
Animals such as scaly-foot gastropods (Chrysomallon squamiferum) and yeti crabs (Kiwa species) have only been recorded at hydrothermal vents. Large colonies of vent mussels and tube worms can also be found living there. In 1980, the Pompeii worm (Alvinella pompejana) was identified living on the sides of vent chimneys.
What zone are hydrothermal vents located?
mid-ocean ridges
Hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean typically form along the mid-ocean ridges, such as the East Pacific Rise and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. These are locations where two tectonic plates are diverging and new crust is being formed.
What animals depend on hydrothermal vents?
These specialized bacteria form the bottom of the deep hydrothermal vent food web, and many animals rely on their presence for survival, including deep-sea mussels, giant tube worms, yeti crabs, and many other invertebrates and fishes.
What does a food web represent?
Basically, food web represents feeding relationships within a community (Smith and Smith 2009). It also implies the transfer of food energy from its source in plants through herbivores to carnivores (Krebs 2009). Normally, food webs consist of a number of food chains meshed together.
What are the two types of hydrothermal vents?
Hydrothermal vents are often divided into two types: ‘black smokers’ and ‘white smokers’.
How does the hydrothermal vent food web work?
The hydrothermal vent food web below has four layers: Primary producers are the original source of food in the vent ecosystem, using chemical energy to create organic molecules. Primary consumers get their energy directly from the primary producers by eating or living symbiotically with them.
Who are the producers in a hydrothermal vent ecosystem?
Next, let’s look at some of the organisms that inhabit the hydrothermal vent ecosystem. All ecosystems are made up of different layers called trophic levels. At the bottom level are organisms called producers, which are organisms that make their own food. Organisms that eat only producers are called primary consumers.
What happens in a deep sea hydrothermal vent?
The deep-sea environment where these vents occur is completely dark, and photosynthesis (=the conversion of carbon dioxide into sugar using sunlight) is impossible. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants and algae form the bottom of the food web, wherever there is sunlight.
How are animals adapted to live in hydrothermal vents?
Hundreds of species of animals have been identified in the hydrothermal vent habitats around the world. At a hydrothermal vent, there is no sunlight to produce energy. Bacteria-like organisms called archaea have solved this problem by using a process called chemosynthesis to turn chemicals from the vents into energy.