Hydrothermal Vents
These underwater features release superheated mineral-rich fluids
What are hydrothermal vents?
Organisms that make their own food
What are primary producers/autotrophs?
Two species both benefit from the relationship
What is mutualism?
Organisms that make their own food and form the base of a food web
What are primary producers?
Decade when hydrothermal vents were first discovered
What is the 1970s?
The plate boundary where most vents form
What is a divergent boundary?
Consumers that eat plants
What are herbivores?
Vines growing on trees
What is commensalism?
Energy transferred to the next trophic level
What is 10%?
Feature where most known vents are found
What is the Mid-Ocean Ridge?
Hotter vents rich in iron sulfides
What are black smokers?
Only about this percent of energy passes to next trophic level
What is 10%?
A tick feeds on a deer and harms its host
What is parasitism?
Consumers that eat both plants and animals
What are omnivores?
Scientists once believed all ecosystems depended on this energy source
What is the Sun?
Long underwater mountain chain where many vents occur
What is the Mid-Ocean Ridge?
Relationship where one organism hunts another
What is predation?
Tube worms depend on bacteria in this type of relationship
What is mutualism?
Like a farmer and crops
A series of connected feeding relationships
What is a food web?
Process supporting vent ecosystems instead of photosynthesis
What is chemosynthesis?
Process that creates new seafloor at ridges
What is seafloor spreading?
Break down dead organisms and recycle nutrients
What are decomposers/detritivores?
Organisms competing for the same resource
What is competition?
Level containing the greatest amount of energy
What are producers/the first trophic level?
Discovery of vents showed ecosystems could exist without direct dependence on this process
What is photosynthesis?