The color depends on the minerals present in the water. Serpulid, or “feather duster” worms, and tevnia tubeworms, which are often the food of choice for vent crabs, the top predator of the vent community. The answer is chemosynthetic bacteria in deep sea vents, which use chemicals instead of sunlight to make their own food. The scientists had made a fascinating discovery—deep-sea hydrothermal vents. They're the producers of this ecosystem. The hawksbill sea turtle is an omnivore, feeding on sea urchins, mollusks, crustaceans and algae. In hydrothermal vent communities, these bacteria are the first step in the food chain. A network of many food chains is called a food web. They are also helping them assess the role of deep-sea vents in cycling chemicals such as carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur between rocks, the ocean, and living things. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2018.00049 1. The primary marine food web, which is based on plant productivity, includes many of the sea's species—but not all of them. Around 400 different kinds of animals are found at vents including tube worms, giant clams, mussels, crabs, shrimp and starfish all at varying levels of the food chain, with chemoautotrophic bacteria at the bottom (figure 911). The Deep Sea Food Web by Grace Eichenour Key: Eaten by or related to Humans/Top Predator Eaten by or related to Secondary Consumers Eaten by or related to Higher Level/Tertiary Consumers Top Predator Eaten by or related to Primary Consumers No arrow means they create their own Food chains start with a primary producer. Primary producers (organisms that make their own food from sunlight and/or chemical energy from deep sea vents) are the base of every food chain - these organisms are called autotrophs. Whilst it was a surprise to find bacteria tolerating extreme temperatures, most Growth continues as long as there is a supply of hydrothermal fluid. A food chain is the sequence of who eats whom in a biological community (an ecosystem) to obtain nutrition. 2. Decomposers are bacteria that chemically break down organic matter. Vents have been located at depths varying from 1500 to 4000 meters. Trophic Levels: The trophic level of an organism is the position it holds in a food chain. Some vent fields may remain active for 10,000 years, but individual vents are much shorter-lived. They also realized that an entirely unique ecosystem, including hundreds of new species, existed around the vents. Some vents produce "white smokers". Bathymodiolus deep sea mussels, which are often the first creatures to colonize the vent and are able to survive for a short time after the vent is inactive. Chemosynthetic bacteria obtain energy from the chemical bonds of hydrogen sulfide. 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