Endeavour Ridge food web: Life in a hydrothermal vent community
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At Endeavour Ridge, the food web is powered by chemosynthesis.
Chemicals including hydrogen sulfide are ejected out of the hot smoker chimneys and cracks in the sea floor. Sufides, along with oxygen and CO2, are used by the microbes or chemosynthetic bacteria to produce carbohydrates. These microbes are the primary producers of this ecosystem. |
Chemosynthetic bacteria
(image courtesy of WHOI)
Bacteria grow in mats around the vents and near methane seeps. Many hydrothermal vent organisms rely on chemosynthetic bacteria for energy. |
These chemosynthetic bacteria are generally of two types:
 Some of these microbes (or bacteria) live inside the bodies of some animals in a symbiotic relationship. The microbes provide food energy to the host animals. For example in the hydrothermal vent tubeworms, the distinctive red plumes contain hemoglobin, which combines the oxygen and hydrogen sulfide and transfers it to the bacteria living inside the worm. The bacteria then provides sugars or carbohydrates for the worm. Those organisms that rely on chemosynthetic bacteria for their nutrition, like vent mussels, clams and tubeworms, are considered primary consumers.
mussels
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Vent tube worms |
- Some microbes live in large mats. Bacterivores such as snails, crabs and shrimp graze on these mats. Filter feeders also feed on these microbes, filtering out food “crumbs” from the water.
Tubeworms, limpets, clams, and other vent animals can be thought of as “farmers” supplying chemicals to the microbes so they will produce sugars. These hot vent worms and clams (“V-worms” and “V-clams”) are extremophiles, animals that thrive in the extreme temperatures and chemical conditions of this deep, hot environment.
Animals that feed directly on the bacteria are also considered primary consumers, which include animals like zooplankton and small crustaceans such as shrimp and amphipods, which feed directly on the vent bacteria.
amphipod |
shrimp on deep sea glass sponge |
Just waiting to munch on these animals, are carnivores like scale worms, spider crabs, fish, and octopi (a mix of secondary, tertiary and top-level consumers). Detrivores include species of crabs and fish that dine on dead and decomposing organisms.
 FOOD WEB Lesson Plan
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