While the flashy coral reefs get all the attention–at least from the ecologically-minded–some strange creatures have found ways to thrive at “cold seeps” and “hydrothermal vents” in the deep oceans. Simple tubeworms often work as eco-system engineers, making an inhospitable environment friendlier to other kinds of life.
The possibilities that suggests to the human species? “The deep sea is the largest habitable space on earth,” says Erik Cordes, a professor of biology at Temple University. “But not so very long ago, most scientists believed that the very deep sea was pretty much a huge flat mud plain, empty of life. Not until we got access to these environments did we realize how complex and diverse it really is. We’ve only started to appreciate how varied the terrain is and how that affects its diversity.”
As Cordes wrote in the abstract: “Shortly after the discovery of chemosynthetic ecosystems at deep-sea hydrothermal vents, similar ecosystems were found at cold seeps in the Gulf of Mexico. Over the past two decades, these sites have become model systems for understanding the physiology of the symbiont-containing megafauna and the ecology of seep communities worldwide.”
Cordes, E., Bergquist, D., & Fisher, C. (2009). Macro-Ecology of Gulf of Mexico Cold Seeps Annual Review of Marine Science, 1 (1), 143-168 DOI: 10.1146/annurev.marine.010908.163912
