Work

Faunal communities of Arctic deep-water methane seeps are specialised with links to hydrothermal vents

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Cold seeps are common seafloor features on Arctic continental margins, but the cold seep fauna in the region has mainly been characterized from sites on the continental shelf or upper slope. Shallower chemosynthesis-based ecosystems, such as cold seeps and hydrothermal vents, typically host fewer specialised species and this pattern is consistent with current knowledge on Arctic cold seep fauna. Here we characterize the fauna of two deep-water cold seeps on the Vestnesa (1300 m) and Svyatogor Ridges (1900 m) based on morphological analyses and DNA barcoding. The Svyatogor Ridge system has been hypothesized to represent a hybrid system with processes resembling both hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, however, until now, it had not been tested whether its fauna shows any similarity to regional hydrothermal vent fauna. Here we document a clearly specialised fauna at both seeps and reveal several shared species with the sedimented hydrothermal vent Loki’s Castle. The dataset presented illustrates a close connection between vent and seep faunas in the Arctic, presumably driven by the close geographic proximity of vents and seeps and the presence of intermediate habitats such as sedimented vents.

Source: Deep Sea Research Part I Oceanographic Research Papers

DOI: 10.1016/j.dsr.2025.104594