A chemoautotrophic whale-fall community in the Santa Cruz basin off southern California at a depth of 1,674 m (5,492 ft), including bacteria mats, vesicomyid clams in the sediments, galatheid crabs, polynoids, and a variety of other invertebrates.
A whale fall occurs when the carcass of a whale has fallen onto the ocean floor at a depth greater than 1,000 m (3,300 ft), in the bathyal or abyssal zones.[1] On the sea floor, these carcasses can create complex localized ecosystems that supply sustenance to deep-sea organisms for decades.[1] This is unlike in shallower waters, where a whale carcass will be consumed by scavengers over a relatively short period of time. Whale falls were first observed in the late 1970s with the development of deep-sea robotic exploration.[2] Since then, several natural and experimental whale falls have been monitored[1][3] through the use of observations from submersibles and remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) in order to understand patterns of ecological succession on the deep seafloor.[4]
Deep sea whale falls are thought to be hotspots of adaptive radiation for specialized fauna.[1] Organisms that have been observed at deep-sea whale fall sites include octopus, giant isopods, squat lobsters, polychaetes, prawns, shrimp, lobsters, hagfish, Osedax, crabs, sea cucumbers, and sleeper sharks. New species have been discovered, including some potentially specializing in whale falls.[1] It has been postulated that whale falls generate biodiversity by providing evolutionary stepping stones for multiple lineages to move and adapt to new environmentally-challenging habitats.[1] Researchers estimate that 690,000 carcasses/skeletons of the nine largest whale species are in one of the four stages of succession at any one time.[5] This estimate implies an average spacing of 12 km (7.5 mi) and as little as 5 km (3.1 mi) along migration routes. They hypothesize that this distance is short enough to allow larvae to disperse/migrate from one to another.[5]
Whale falls are able to occur in the deep open ocean due to cold temperatures and high hydrostatic pressures. In the coastal ocean, a higher incidence of predators as well as warmer waters hasten the decomposition of whale carcasses.[1] Carcasses may also float due to decompositional gases, keeping the carcass at the surface.[6] The bodies of most great whales (which includes sperm whales and many species of baleen whale[7]) are slightly denser than the surrounding seawater, and only become positively buoyant when the lungs are filled with air.[8] When the lungs deflate, the whale carcasses can reach the seafloor quickly and relatively intact due to a lack of significant whale fall scavengers in the water column.[1] Once in the deep-sea, cold temperatures slow decomposition rates, and high hydrostatic pressures increase gas solubility, allowing whale falls to remain intact and sink to even greater depths.[6]
^ abcdefghSmith, Craig R.; Glover, Adrian G.; Treude, Tina; Higgs, Nicholas D.; Amon, Diva J. (2015). "Whale-Fall Ecosystems: Recent Insights into Ecology, Paleoecology, and Evolution". Annual Review of Marine Science. 7 (1): 571–596. Bibcode:2015ARMS....7..571S. doi:10.1146/annurev-marine-010213-135144. PMID 25251277. S2CID 43201905.
^Vetter, Tom (2015). 30,000 Leagues Undersea: True Tales of a Submariner and Deep Submergence Pilot. Tom Vetter Books, LLC. ISBN 978-1-941160-10-7.[permanent dead link]
^Lundsten, Lonny; Schlining, Kyra L.; Frasier, Kaitlin; Johnson, Shannon B.; Kuhnz, Linda A.; Harvey, Julio B. J.; Clague, Gillian; Vrijenhoek, Robert C. (1 December 2010). "Time-series analysis of six whale-fall communities in Monterey Canyon, California, USA". Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers. 57 (12): 1573–1584. Bibcode:2010DSRI...57.1573L. doi:10.1016/j.dsr.2010.09.003. ISSN 0967-0637.
^Aguzzi, J.; Fanelli, E.; Ciuffardi, T.; Schirone, A.; De Leo, F. C.; Doya, C.; Kawato, M.; Miyazaki, M.; Furushima, Y.; Costa, C.; Fujiwara, Y. (24 July 2018). "Faunal activity rhythms influencing early community succession of an implanted whale carcass offshore Sagami Bay, Japan". Scientific Reports. 8 (1): 11163. Bibcode:2018NatSR...811163A. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-29431-5. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 6057991. PMID 30042515.
^ abLittle, C. T. (2010). "Life at the Bottom: The Prolific Afterlife of Whales". Scientific American. 302 (2): 78–82, 84. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0210-78. PMID 20128227.
^ abAllison, Peter A.; Smith, Craig R.; Kukert, Helmut; Deming, Jody W.; Bennett, Bruce A. (1991). "Deep-water taphonomy of vertebrate carcasses: a whale skeleton in the bathyal Santa Catalina Basin". Paleobiology. 17 (1): 78–89. doi:10.1017/S0094837300010368. JSTOR 2400991. S2CID 129439319.
^Baldanza, Angela; Bizzarri, Roberto; Famiani, Federico; Garassino, Alessandro; Pasini, Giovanni; Cherin, Marco; Rosatini, Francesco (2018). "The early Pleistocene whale-fall community of Bargiano (Umbria, Central Italy): Paleoecological insights from benthic foraminifera and brachyuran crabs". Palaeontologia Electronica. 21 (16): 1–27. doi:10.26879/779. ISSN 1094-8074.
^Reisdorf, Achim G.; Bux, Roman; Wyler, Daniel; Benecke, Mark; Klug, Christian; Maisch, Michael W.; Fornaro, Peter; Wetzel, Andreas (1 March 2012). "Float, explode or sink: postmortem fate of lung-breathing marine vertebrates" (PDF). Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments. 92 (1): 67–81. doi:10.1007/s12549-011-0067-z. ISSN 1867-1608. S2CID 129712910.
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