The ecology of deep-sea asteroids
The ecology of deep-sea asteroids
The asteroids are an important megafaunal group in the deep-sea. In shallow water environments, asteroids are known to have an important effect on marine community structure. Those factors structuring shallow water marine communities have been well characterised. In the deep-sea, they are barely understood, largely as a result of the lack of ecological knowledge of important faunal groups. This thesis, through investigation of the ecology of deep-sea asteroids, aims to increase our understanding of the largest ecosystem on the plant.
The asteroids have very narrow centres of distribution in which they are abundant, despite much wider total adult depth ranges. Non-lethal factors such as food availability, trophic interactions and available habitat are thought to result in these narrow distribution bands. The asteroids exhibit a wide variety of feeding strategies. Species inhabiting similar depths utilized different components of the available food resource. Resources partitioning may be important among deep-sea asteroids, suggesting competition for food may be important in structuring deep-sea marine communities. However, some abyssal asteroids did not show resource partitioning. Abundances of these abyssal asteroids are considered too low for competition to be important.
All asteroid species have restricted depth ranges and a non-repeating sequential change in species with depth is apparent. Lethal factors, such as temperature and pressure are responsible for these restricted distributions. Pressure adversely affects biological systems in particular membrane structure and function. The asteroids are biochemically adapted, in terms of their cell membrane structure, to the depth they inhabit. The bathymetric distribution of the juveniles of some species extends outside the adult depth range, possibly as a result of tolerance of a greater range of pressures by juveniles. Asteroids are reproductively isolated with depth, and pressure is thought to play an important role in marine speciation and invasion of the deep-sea ecosystem.
University of Southampton
Howell, Kerry Louise
5e532b5f-6e6a-43e1-9627-bc48bab9127b
2002
Howell, Kerry Louise
5e532b5f-6e6a-43e1-9627-bc48bab9127b
Howell, Kerry Louise
(2002)
The ecology of deep-sea asteroids.
University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.
Record type:
Thesis
(Doctoral)
Abstract
The asteroids are an important megafaunal group in the deep-sea. In shallow water environments, asteroids are known to have an important effect on marine community structure. Those factors structuring shallow water marine communities have been well characterised. In the deep-sea, they are barely understood, largely as a result of the lack of ecological knowledge of important faunal groups. This thesis, through investigation of the ecology of deep-sea asteroids, aims to increase our understanding of the largest ecosystem on the plant.
The asteroids have very narrow centres of distribution in which they are abundant, despite much wider total adult depth ranges. Non-lethal factors such as food availability, trophic interactions and available habitat are thought to result in these narrow distribution bands. The asteroids exhibit a wide variety of feeding strategies. Species inhabiting similar depths utilized different components of the available food resource. Resources partitioning may be important among deep-sea asteroids, suggesting competition for food may be important in structuring deep-sea marine communities. However, some abyssal asteroids did not show resource partitioning. Abundances of these abyssal asteroids are considered too low for competition to be important.
All asteroid species have restricted depth ranges and a non-repeating sequential change in species with depth is apparent. Lethal factors, such as temperature and pressure are responsible for these restricted distributions. Pressure adversely affects biological systems in particular membrane structure and function. The asteroids are biochemically adapted, in terms of their cell membrane structure, to the depth they inhabit. The bathymetric distribution of the juveniles of some species extends outside the adult depth range, possibly as a result of tolerance of a greater range of pressures by juveniles. Asteroids are reproductively isolated with depth, and pressure is thought to play an important role in marine speciation and invasion of the deep-sea ecosystem.
This record has no associated files available for download.
More information
Published date: 2002
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 464783
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/464783
PURE UUID: 1deb9468-7fec-40fe-802e-6c548890ac1b
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 05 Jul 2022 00:01
Last modified: 23 Jul 2022 02:14
Export record
Contributors
Author:
Kerry Louise Howell
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics