A History Of Life

1. Life in a sulphuretum
(Past ecosystems/Microbial communities)

Just as photosynthesizers form the base of food webs in sunlit communities, so do sulfide oxidizing bacteria in sulphureta (Dyer 2003 - see preceding post). One such places is the mudflat belt aroun

2. Methane, flatulence, and the coevolution of bacteria
(Past ecosystems/Microbial communities)

The book A Field Guide to Bacteria by Betsey Dexter Dyer features a mine of gold for evolutionary thinking. Easily readable, it does not require the chemical and biological background needed to app

3. Sperm whales carcasses at the shelf break
(Past ecosystems/Whale-fall communities)

...lops around a carcass of a large cetacean undergoes four successional stages that allow nectic, benthic and bacterial organisms to exploit energy associated with whale tissues (see article "Whal...

4. What not to do with a beached whale
(Past ecosystems/Whale-fall communities)

..., it could be transported offshore where it came from, to the benefit of shallow marine necton, benthos and bacteria and of inland scientists interested in whale-fall ecosystems. If you don't know...

5. Whale-fall bivalves
(Past ecosystems/Whale-fall communities)

...ave little doubt that lipids did get downgraded to form sulfide, to the benefit of anaerobic sulphophilic bacteria.   What species are there? The main charcater at Orciano is...

6. Whale-fall communities on the shelf
(Past ecosystems/Whale-fall communities)

...outhless-worms sucking fat from whale bones and a variety of other invertebrates relying on chemiosymbiotic bacteria for food, shed light on ecosystems based on highly localized, ephemeral sources of ...