Prolonged recovery time after eruptive disturbance of a deep-sea hydrothermal vent community.

ABSTRACT: Deep-sea hydrothermal vents are associated with seafloor tectonic and magmatic activity, and the communities living there are subject to disturbance. Eruptions can be frequent and catastrophic, raising questions about how these communities persist and maintain regional biodiversity. Prior studies of frequently disturbed vents have led to suggestions that faunal recovery can occur within 2-4 years. We use an unprecedented long-term (11-year) series of colonization data following a catastrophic 2006 seafloor eruption on the East Pacific Rise to show that faunal successional changes continue beyond a decade following the disturbance. Species composition at nine months post-eruption was conspicuously different than the pre-eruption 'baseline' state, which had been characterized in 1998 (85 mon

SUBMITTER: Mullineaux LS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7779506 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature