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Science 21 December 1984:
Vol. 226. no. 4681, pp. 1451 - 1454
DOI: 10.1126/science.226.4681.1451
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Articles

Larval Development and Dispersal at Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents

RICHARD A. LUTZ 1, DAVID JABLONSKI 2, and RUTH D. TURNER 3

1 Center for Coastal and Environmental Studies and Department of Oyster Culture, New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, Rutgers University, New Brunswick 08903
2 Department of Ecology and Environmental Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson 85721
3 Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Deep-sea hydrothermal vent communities exhibit an array of reproductive strategies. Although a few vent species undergo planktotrophic, high-dispersal modes of development, most exhibit relatively low dispersal, but probably free-swimming nonplanktotrophic development. This predominance of nonplanktotrophy may be largely a reflection of phylogenetic constraints on the vent colonizing taxa; intervent dispersal among these forms may be facilitated by reduced developmental rates in the cold abyssal waters away from the vents. It is proposed that for those vent species with nonplanktotrophic development, larval dispersal is a stepwise process with oceanic ridge axes serving as discrete dispersal corridors.

Submitted on June 12, 1984
Accepted on September 28, 1984


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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Early Cretaceous giant bivalves from seep-related limestone mounds, Wollaston Forland, Northeast Greenland.
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