| Resumo: |
The discovery of deep-sea hydrothermal vent fauna, kilometers deep in the oceans, is a great achievement of 20th-century marine biology. The deep-sea hydrothermal food web does not directly depend on the sun energy. Vent communities rely primarily on trophic associations between chemoautotrophic bacteria and consumers. A small number of endemic taxa are adapted to this highly toxic environment distributed along ridge crests. Where they appeared and how they dispersed is among the important questions ecologists must answer. Here, by statistical analysis of the most comprehensive data base ever assembled about deep-sea hydrothermal fauna, we delineate six major hydrothermal provinces in the World Ocean, then we identify five significant dispersal flows between adjacent provinces and derive a hypothesis about the center from which that fauna has dispersed to the oceanic ridges of the world. Our data-driven conclusion can be tested by phylogenetic studies and completed by surveys of less explored fields.
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