Marine Biology Research Group, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
PLoS One. 2010 Aug 27;5(8):e12449. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0012449.
Here, insight is provided into the present knowledge on free-living nematodes associated with chemosynthetic environments in the deep sea. It was investigated if the same trends of high standing stock, low diversity, and the dominance of a specialized fauna, as observed for macro-invertebrates, are also present in the nematodes in both vents and seeps.
This review is based on existing literature, in combination with integrated analysis of datasets, obtained through the Census of Marine Life program on Biogeography of Deep-Water Chemosynthetic Ecosystems (ChEss).
Nematodes are often thriving in the sulphidic sediments of deep cold seeps, with standing stock values ocassionaly exceeding largely the numbers at background sites. Vents seem not characterized by elevated densities. Both chemosynthetic driven ecosystems are showing low nematode diversity, and high dominance of single species. Genera richness seems inversely correlated to vent and seep fluid emissions, associated with distinct habitat types. Deep-sea cold seeps and hydrothermal vents are, however, highly dissimilar in terms of community composition and dominant taxa. There is no unique affinity of particular nematode taxa with seeps or vents.
It seems that shallow water relatives, rather than typical deep-sea taxa, have successfully colonized the reduced sediments of seeps at large water depth. For vents, the taxonomic similarity with adjacent regular sediments is much higher, supporting rather the importance of local adaptation, than that of long distance distribution. Likely the ephemeral nature of vents, its long distance offshore and the absence of pelagic transport mechanisms, have prevented so far the establishment of a successful and typical vent nematode fauna. Some future perspectives in meiofauna research are provided in order to get a more integrated picture of vent and seep biological processes, including all components of the marine ecosystem.
本研究深入探讨了深海化能环境中自由生活线虫的现有知识。研究调查了在喷口和渗漏环境中，大型无脊椎动物中观察到的高生物量、低多样性和特化动物群优势的趋势是否也存在于线虫中。
本综述基于现有文献，并结合海洋生命普查计划（Census of Marine Life）在深海化能生态系统生物地理学（ChEss）项目中获得的综合数据集进行分析。
线虫通常在深海冷渗漏的硫化沉积物中大量繁殖，生物量值偶尔会超过背景站点的数量。喷口似乎没有特征性的高密度。这两个化能驱动的生态系统都表现出低线虫多样性和高单一种群优势。属丰富度似乎与喷口和渗漏流体排放呈反比，这与独特的栖息地类型有关。深海冷渗漏和热液喷口在群落组成和优势类群方面存在很大差异。没有特定线虫类群与渗漏或喷口有独特的亲和力。
似乎是浅海亲缘物种，而不是典型的深海类群，成功地在深海冷渗漏的还原沉积物中大量繁殖。对于喷口，与相邻正常沉积物的分类相似性要高得多，这支持了局部适应的重要性，而不是远距离分布的重要性。可能是喷口的短暂性、其远离沿海的位置以及缺乏浮游运输机制，迄今为止阻止了成功建立典型喷口线虫动物群。为了更全面地了解喷口和渗漏的生物过程，包括海洋生态系统的所有组成部分，本研究提供了一些未来在小型生物研究方面的展望。
