Community Structure and Foodweb Dynamics in an Anchialine Cave in the Yucatan Peninsula

长期以来，人们一直认为，黑暗、缺氧的栖息地，如深海的大部分地区，基本上没有生命，居住着低密度但多样化的特有动物群。1970年代发现热液喷口，随后认识到非光基能源在极端环境中通过化学合成为各种海洋食物网提供燃料，从此彻底改变了对这种生态系统的生态思考。他们现在被认为是高生产力，表现出更大的大型动物生物量，但较低的生物多样性，比邻近地区缺乏化能合成流入。派糕？研究提供的初步证据表明，这种模式可能存在于另一种极端的生态系统-水下的无脊椎洞穴，在这种洞穴中，一个离散的海洋层位于一个或多个孤立的微咸或淡水层之下。大多数无脊椎动物洞穴的无脊椎动物密度很低，但有些洞穴中的虾和Remipedia成员的生物量却令人费解，Remipedia是1981年发现的一种罕见的甲壳类动物，仅在亚热带的无脊椎动物洞穴中发现。这是派糕的目的吗？论文整合地球化学，微生物学，无脊椎动物食物网动力学和行为的研究，以更好地了解化学合成是否与大型底栖动物密度和多样性以及这些极端生态系统中的remipede喂养行为相关。

It was long thought that dark, oxygen-poor habitats, such as much of the deep sea, were largely devoid of life and housed low density, yet diverse assemblages of endemic fauna. The discovery of hydrothermal vents in the 1970s and subsequent realization that non-light based energy sources fuel a variety of marine foodwebs via chemosynthesis in extreme environments have since revolutionized ecological thinking about such ecosystems. They are now known to be highly productive, exhibiting greater macrofaunal biomass, yet lower organismal diversity, than neighboring areas devoid of chemosynthetic influx. Pakes? research provides preliminary evidence that such a pattern may exist in another extreme ecosystem- underwater anchialine caves, in which a discrete marine layer rests beneath one or more isolated layers of brackish or freshwater. Most anchialine caves contain low densities of invertebrates, yet some have inexplicably large biomasses of shrimp and members of the Remipedia, a rare crustacean class discovered in 1981 and found only in subtropical anchialine caves. It is the aim of Pakes? dissertation to integrate studies of geochemistry, microbiology, invertebrate food web dynamics, and behavior to better understand whether chemosynthesis correlates with macrofaunal density and diversity as well as remipede feeding behaviors in these extreme ecosystems.