[Seminar] The Paleobiology of deep-sea ecosystems - Dr Steffen Kiel (Swedish Museum of Natural History)

Hydrothermal vents and methane seeps in the deep sea are inhabited by highly specialized faunal communities that rely mostly on chemoautotrophic bacteria for nutrition. This spawned the hypothesis that their evolutionary history is independent from that of photosynthesis-based food chains and unaffected by the global mass extinction events. The fossil record provides insights into origin and evolution of these faunas and indicates that the main evolutionary patterns are driven by changes in ocean chemistry.