Ephemeral habitats

The lipid rich skeleton of a whale can remain as an energy source on the sea floor for decades. Analogous to other similarly ephemeral habitats, highly specialized species have evolved that, often by unknown mechanisms, creates this chemoautotrophic system. Previous studies of whale-fall communities are limited to the deep-sea Pacific. The first experiment in the Atlantic was initiated in October 2003 when our research team sunk a dead Minke Whale in the Skagerrack. Bones collected after 10 months of deployment were riddled with a previously undescribed species belonging to the genus Osedax. These are annelid worms related to vestimentiferan tube-worms, characteristic of deep-sea chemoautotrophic environments such as hydrothermal vents, and hitherto only reported from one whale-fall at 3000 meters depth off Monterey in California.

The project aims to explore whale-fall communities as a model to:
1) analyse and describe patterns of biological diversity in deep-sea habitats using systematics, taxonomy and phylogeography,
2) test hypotheses of evolution, such as the origin of hydrothermal vent taxa, by estimating phylogenetic relationships,
3) understand life history traits and dispersal strategies in organisms at ephemeral habitats using population genetics and larval morphology,
4) explore the impact of whaling on marine diversity by habitat reduction.

People involved in this project are
Thomas Dahlgren, Helena Wiklund and Björn Källström in Sweden, Adrian Glover from the Natural History Museum in London, and Craig Smith from the University of Hawaii.