A deep-sea crab walks into a pub and asked, “Where’s the bar tender?”
Few deep-sea organisms rely on food originally from land. Most deep-sea dwellers rely on marine snow (detritus raining from the surface), large food falls like dead whales, or chemosynthetic pathways like those at hot vents and cold seeps. This makes sense. How much land plant material makes into the deep sea?
Apparently enough to make a living on. When chunks of wood make it to the seafloor, they form specialized communities, i.e. wood-fall communities. As the wood degrades, bacterial mats form, clams bore into it, and a host of other organisms come in to feed. New work in Marine Biology suggests that the most dominant group after mollusks, the crustaceans, may also be feeding on the wood. Researchers found wood in the gut of Munidopsis andamanica, a squat lobster commonly found at woodfalls. Further work indicates that a resident gut microflora of bacteria and fungi exist that may aid in digesting wood fragments. However to eat wood a species is going to need a robust digestive system. Roughage, indeed! Detailed anatomical analysis revealed that the mouthparts and gastric mill, i.e. stomach, were modified to be stout enough for a lumber diet. The claw is also spoon shaped and thought to serve as a utensil to bring wood bits to the mouth.
M. andamanica thus represents another pathway by which carbon cycles derived on land cycles into the deep sea.
Hoyoux, C., Zbinden, M., Samadi, S., Gaill, F., & Compère, P. (2009). Wood-based diet and gut microflora of a galatheid crab associated with Pacific deep-sea wood falls Marine Biology, 156 (12), 2421-2439 DOI: 10.1007/s00227-009-1266-2
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That is really cool… how common are these woodfall communities, and is there any general rule of thumb about where they are found? For example, are they more common in estuarine environments, or shallow bays near land?
DeLene,
The woodfall communities discussed here are on the deep-sea floor, past the continental shelf and over 200m deep. As whether certain areas possess more woodfalls than others no actual data exists. Speculating, you would expect more where the continental shelf is small and the deep sea is closer to land or where at major river outputs.
Okay, I totally should have known that (past the continental shelf = deep sea = this is the Deep Sea News blog) but that is nuts to find wood so far out… That would make a lot of sense that you would expect more where the shelf is smaller/narrower. Thanks for the insight!
DeLene,
NP, good question.