Active Animals of the Deep-Sea Floor
Active Animals of the Deep-Sea Floor
复制标题
深海海底的活跃动物
DOI：
10.1038/scientificamerican1075-84
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发表时间：
1975
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
R. A. Schwartzlose
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. Isaacs;R. A. Schwartzlose
投掷到深海海底的自动相机拍摄的照片证实了几年前从诱饵陷阱收集的证据中首次提出的一个发现。在一个通常被认为主要由蠕虫、蜗牛和海绵等弱小生物居住的地方，大量活跃的深海动物茁壮成长。这数千张图片清楚地表明，深海海底的大部分地区充满了各种各样的食腐动物：充满活力的无脊椎动物和鱼类，包括一些巨大的鲨鱼，它们依靠海洋食物网为生，而海洋食物网的范围和复杂性才刚刚开始被认识到。英国皇家海军挑战者号在19世纪70年代进行的著名探险，彻底推翻了大洋深处是一片死气沉沉的沙漠的旧观念。挑战者号的拖网和挖泥船将大量中深水生物和生活在海底的生物带到了海面上，引起了生物学家的注意，这些生物甚至来自最深的海沟(见小赫伯特·s·贝利的《挑战者号的航行》；科学美国人，1953年5月]。这份清单包括一些最怪异的形式，这些形式是高等动物为了适应极端环境而形成的，还有一些被认为早就灭绝了的动物。
Photographs made by automatic cameras that have been dropped to the deep-ocean floor have con firmed a finding that was first suggested by evidence gathered from baited traps some years ago. A deep-sea population of large, active animals thrives in what was generally assumed to be a province inhabited mainly by small, feeble crea tures such as worms, snails and sponges. The thousands of pictures make it clear that much of the deep-sea floor teems with numerous species of scavengers: vigorous invertebrates and fishes, includ ing some gigantic sharks, that are sup ported by a marine food web whose ex tent and complexity is only beginning to be perceived.The celebrated expedition of HMS Challenger in the 1870's laid to rest the old idea that the deep waters of the open ocean were a lifeless desert. The Challenger's trawls and dredges brought to the surface and to the attention of bi ologists a vast collection of deep-mid water and bottom-dwelling creatures from even the deepest ocean trenches [see" The Voyage of the'Challenger,'''by Herbert S. Bailey, Jr.; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, May, 1953]. The inventory included some of the most grotesque forms into which higher animals have ever been molded by adaptation to ex treme conditions, and several animals that had been thought to be long extinct.