The Prolific Afterlife
Author: Crispin T. S. Little
A: List the major ideas, concepts or key points- point by point
B: Summarize the AUTHOR'S main point or idea- at LEAST 1-2 paragraphs
Craig Smith who is an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa decided to travel to the sea floor in Santa Catalina Basin in 1987 to find the skeleton of a whale. The whale has been dead for several years, but the bones is what was catching Smith and his teams attention.The skeleton was found to have many organisms on it, such as worms, clams, limpets, and white microbial mats. Decomposers such Chemosynthetic bacteria were also found. This bacteria draws energy from inorganic chemicals and forms the basis of an entire ecosystem. In 1992 is when Smith and his team started experimenting the skeleton. They discovered that the whale goes through 3 ecological stages, which is the Mobile scavenger stage, Enrichment opportunist stage, and the Sulfophilic stage. Since their discovery other investigators have documented dozens of communities that are supported by sunken whale carcasses.
C: Write a reaction paragraph to the article stating your own thoughts on the topic, using specific citations from the article to support your views
Reading this article made me realize that whales are more important than I thought they were. It was very interesting to know that whale go through 3 ecological stages and that Whale bones can contain 2,000 to 3,000 kg of lipids making the third stage last very long. Even though the whale has been dead for many years, it's amazing to know that its skeleton held many organisms that haven't been discovered yet. Whale skeletons are able to build a community under the sea. Smith's discovery has influence other researchers to document a lot of communities that are proven by whale carcasses also. In the future, I predict many more discoveries of the unknown whale fallout community.
So What?:
Says Who?:
What if...? The whale skeleton community was never discovered:
What does this remind me of?:
The article The fish and the Forest because both of these articles provide for the ecosystem. In that article the nutrients in the fish do, and in this article the whale does.
- The skeleton of a dead whale in a barren waste land can be like an oasis in the ocean
- A new specie of limpet were described in 1985
- Limpets are snail-like mollusks with conical shells
- Smith and co workers in 1989 suggested that whale skeletons act as stepping stones for deep sea animals to spread from one chemosynthetc community to another
- Researchers sketched out a picture of how the communities of the whale-fall works and how they evolved.
- Whale falls go through 3 overlapping ecological stages.
- 1) Mobile scavenger stage starts when the whale carcass arrives on the seafloor hag fish tunnel through the mean while a few sleeper sharks take larger bites. Consuming 40 to 60 kg of whale a day.
- 2) Enrichment opportunist stage- 2 years long, high-density through low-diversity communities of animals colonize sediments surrounding whale skeletons and the exposed bones.
- 3) The last stage is the sulfophilic stage. Special bacteria break down the lipid within whale bones.
- From the 1960s onward, an increasing number of whale skulls and other bones were attached with a new mollusk species.
- Whale bones can contain 2,000 to 3,000 kg of lipids making the sulfophilic stage last very long.
- Researchers concluded that earlier whales were not large enough to host sulfophilic communities.
- Newer studies suggest that a consistent group of organisms depend of the whale fallout. The stages in Santa Catalina were not apparent.
- At the estimate of around 69,000 whales die per year, scientists estimate there are 690,000 skeletons of the nine largest whale specie rotting at any time
- One decomposer is known as Oxedax. The oxedex is very unusual from feeding to reproduction. It uses roots to tunnel into whale bone to gather lipid or proteins or both.
- Researchers suspect that similar communities may have existed before the first whales in the sunken carcasses of ancient marine reptiles
- Studies have shown the insides of those early aquatic reptiles were similar to that of the whale. The bones had lots of marrow space which could have contained lipids
B: Summarize the AUTHOR'S main point or idea- at LEAST 1-2 paragraphs
Craig Smith who is an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa decided to travel to the sea floor in Santa Catalina Basin in 1987 to find the skeleton of a whale. The whale has been dead for several years, but the bones is what was catching Smith and his teams attention.The skeleton was found to have many organisms on it, such as worms, clams, limpets, and white microbial mats. Decomposers such Chemosynthetic bacteria were also found. This bacteria draws energy from inorganic chemicals and forms the basis of an entire ecosystem. In 1992 is when Smith and his team started experimenting the skeleton. They discovered that the whale goes through 3 ecological stages, which is the Mobile scavenger stage, Enrichment opportunist stage, and the Sulfophilic stage. Since their discovery other investigators have documented dozens of communities that are supported by sunken whale carcasses.
C: Write a reaction paragraph to the article stating your own thoughts on the topic, using specific citations from the article to support your views
Reading this article made me realize that whales are more important than I thought they were. It was very interesting to know that whale go through 3 ecological stages and that Whale bones can contain 2,000 to 3,000 kg of lipids making the third stage last very long. Even though the whale has been dead for many years, it's amazing to know that its skeleton held many organisms that haven't been discovered yet. Whale skeletons are able to build a community under the sea. Smith's discovery has influence other researchers to document a lot of communities that are proven by whale carcasses also. In the future, I predict many more discoveries of the unknown whale fallout community.
So What?:
- Whales are beneficial to other species
- Their skeletons build communities under the sea and hold many organisms
- Long lasting food source
Says Who?:
- Author: Crispin T.S. Little
- Craig Smith who is an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa
- Smith's team
What if...? The whale skeleton community was never discovered:
- We would have learned that the whale goes through 3 ecological stages
- The organisms that are found on the whale skeleton
- Chemosynthetic bacteria
- There would be no discoveries of the whale fallout community
What does this remind me of?:
The article The fish and the Forest because both of these articles provide for the ecosystem. In that article the nutrients in the fish do, and in this article the whale does.