Cindy Lee Van Dover is at the Biology Dept, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.
Trends Ecol Evol. 1990 Aug;5(8):242-6. doi: 10.1016/0169-5347(90)90063-J.
Compared to terrestrial and shallow-water habitats, deep-sea hydrothermal vents are unique environments characterized by their local insularity, global distribution, individual ephemerality, collective geological longevity, geochemical homogeneity, and their physical and energetic isolation from the catastrophic events implicated in the extinction and speciation of terrestrial and shallow-water forms. Development of vent communities has thus occurred in novel biogeographical contexts that challenge our ability to understand evolutionary processes in the deep sea. Recent field work by French, Canadian, German, Japanese and American scientists has revealed intriguing patterns in the taxonomic composition and distribution of vent organisms at geographically disjunct study sites.
与陆地和浅海栖息地相比，深海热液喷口是独特的环境，其特点是局部孤立、全球分布、个体短暂、集体地质寿命长、地球化学均一性，以及与导致陆地和浅海形式灭绝和物种形成的灾难性事件物理和能量隔离。因此，喷口群落的发展发生在新的生物地理背景下，这挑战了我们理解深海进化过程的能力。法国、加拿大、德国、日本和美国科学家最近的实地考察揭示了地理上分散的研究地点的喷口生物的分类组成和分布的有趣模式。
