Publications by authors named "V Tunnicliffe"
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High functional vulnerability across the world's deep-sea hydrothermal vent communities.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
November 2024
Article Synopsis
- Deep-sea hydrothermal vents host unique animals that rely on bacteria sustained by extreme outflows from the seafloor, thriving in high heat, toxic environments, and low oxygen conditions.
- Research suggests that extreme vent environments prompt the evolution of functionally similar species globally, but some areas show unique functional traits due to specific geological conditions.
- The loss of species in these vent systems poses a risk of functional collapse, emphasizing the need for proactive measures to protect these fragile ecosystems from human-induced threats.
Article Synopsis
- * Mining for these minerals typically leads to biodiversity loss, prompting the exploration of deep seabed mining as an alternative, despite limited comparative studies on environmental impact between land-based and seabed mining.
- * A new framework called the Environmental Impact Wheel is proposed for assessing mining's ecosystem impacts, incorporating multiple attributes and indicators, with steps to facilitate holistic and targeted environmental comparisons.
The sighting of giant bivalves and tubeworms at the Rose Garden vent field on the Galápagos Rift in 1977 marked the discovery of hydrothermal vents, a turning point for modern biology. The following decade saw a flurry of taxonomic descriptions of vent endemic species from the first vents. With the finding of high-temperature "black smokers" on the East Pacific Rise, exploration shifted away from Galápagos.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMussels of the genus Bathymodiolus Kenk & Wilson belong to the foundation fauna at hydrothermal vents in the global deep sea. In the western Pacific and Indian oceans, the three nominal taxa B. septemdierum Hashimoto and Okutani, B.
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