The Prolific Afterlife of Whales
- Smith, an oceanographer, returned to study the skeleton site more in depth
- Investigators find that many communities are supported by sunken whale carcasses
- More than 400 species that are living around it and at least 30 have not been seen anywhere else
- 1985, mussels and limpets were found from the recovering of whale bones
- 1987, mollusk species discovered by Smith's team
- Clams and mussels belonged to a group called harbor chemosynthetic bacteria
- These bacteria can draw energy from inorganic chemicals and sometimes form the basis of an entire ecosystem
- When whales fall, they go through 3 ecological stages; the mobile scavenger stage, enrichment opportunist stage, and sulfophilic stage
- The mobile scavenger stage; hordes of hagfish tunnel through the meat, sleeper sharks take large bites, and other scavengers strip away the bulk of the whale soft tissue
- The enrichment opportunist stage; which lasts up to 2 years, in high-density and low- diversity, communities of animals colonize the sediments surrounding the whale carcasses and the newly exposed bones, feeding off the remains left by scavengers and is dominated by polychaetes (bristle worms) and crustasceans
- The sulfophilic stage; the longest phase, specialized bacteria anaerobically break down lipids contained in the bones, unlike aerobic bacteria, they use dissolved sulfate (SO4) as their source of oxygen and release hydrogen sulfide (H2S) as waste
- Whale bones are extremely rich in lipids, a 40-ton whale carcass contains up to 2000-3000 kilograms of it and the decomposition is a very slow process as it takes up to 50 years for the last stage or even a century
- 2004, Osedax, are worms referred to "bone devourer" and also known to be the zombie worms which were found and first described
- From genetic evidences, its said to be around 40 million years old which is the same age as vesicomyid clams and whales
- The tunneling activity by these osedaxes rapidly destroys the exposed whale bones which then speeds up the sulfophilic stage and affecting its habitat as well
- By this time reduction, this poses a threat to the stepping-stone species because it makes it difficult for animals to get from one chemosynthetic site to another
- Even before the first whales existed, in the Mesozoic oceans where ancient marine reptiles were dominant predators, of these included plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and mosasaurs
Until investigators came down to the bottom of the ocean to find a whale's remains that is surrounded by communities, discover fascinating things that were mostly unknown. Through this revealing of ancientness, it raised interest for them to start conducting experiments and analysis on whales that fall deep into the waters to look more into its habitat development. The whale's remains play a role of a stepping-stone species for organisms such as clams and mussels who draw energy from inorganic compounds that require the needs of being able to extend from a singular chemosynthetic community to another. After every research, they soon learn that these whales enter through a 3-stage process that make life of communities possible. These were the mobile scavenger stage, enrichment opportunist stage, and sulfophilic stage. More surprisingly, they also found out that ancient marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and mosasaurs even existed before the first whales came to being.
After reading this intensifying flow of information on whale falls, I had not known that whales can be very useful for other species in a community to benefit. I also was astonished by the fact that its a 40-ton gigantic organism whose features are rich in lipids. Seeing how whales even after death can still provide many things for both old and new communities, it shows how they are an extremely important being deep in the oceans. Not many organisms after death give off to others but even if they did they would not be able to do as much as these whales can. Its also really cool to find that before whales, there were other species that does the same process, and those were marine reptiles during the Mesozoic era. The three stages in the whales process are so long that I can't even think that one organism out there can reflect the same way in that length of time to supply for others. Unfortunately, the zombie-like worms called Osedax speeds up this procedure by consuming the exposed bones of the dead whales which can cause issues to arise for life in the habitats. Overall, I like whales because not that they are the largest marine mammal of today but the way that Dory's act in Finding Nemo is presented. How do you speak whales anyway? Ask Dory!