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. From seagrass to mangrove, and back
(Past ecosystems/Mangrove forest)

...oral reefs (Koenig et al. 2007). Such findings confirm that mangroves are crucial to the existence of adjacent communities, as demonstrated by earlier studies on reef fishes (Mumby et al. 2004), and t...

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

Finally some evidence on the sulphophilic stage of whale-fall communities at relatively shallow depths. The ecosystem that develops around a carcass of a large cetacean undergoes four successional sta

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

...round the Orciano whale testify at least of two of the three successional stages that bound modern whale-fall communities (Smith & Baco 2003), namely the first, or mobile-scavenger stage, and th...

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

Whale-fall communities have been studied since the eighties, attracting ecologists and paleoecologists alike. Incredible findings of mouthless-worms sucking fat from whale bones and a variety