Biogeosciences, 15, 2629–2647, 2018 https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-2629-2018 © Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Biodiversity and trophic ecology of hydrothermal vent fauna associated with tubeworm assemblages on the Juan de Fuca Ridge Yann Lelièvre1,2, Jozée Sarrazin1, Julien Marticorena1, Gauthier Schaal3, Thomas Day1, Pierre Legendre2, Stéphane Hourdez4,5, and Marjolaine Matabos1 1Ifremer, Centre de Bretagne, REM/EEP, Laboratoire Environnement Profond, 29280 Plouzané, France 2Département de sciences biologiques, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, succursale Centre-ville, Montréal, Québec, H3C 3J7, Canada 3Laboratoire des Sciences de l’Environnement Marin (LEMAR), UMR 6539 9 CNRS/UBO/IRD/Ifremer, BP 70, 29280, Plouzané, France 4Sorbonne Université, UMR7144, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29680 Roscoff, France 5CNRS, UMR7144, Station Biologique de Roscoff, 29680 Roscoff, France Correspondence: Yann Lelièvre (
[email protected]) Received: 3 October 2017 – Discussion started: 12 October 2017 Revised: 29 March 2018 – Accepted: 7 April 2018 – Published: 4 May 2018 Abstract. Hydrothermal vent sites along the Juan de Fuca community structuring. Vent food webs did not appear to be Ridge in the north-east Pacific host dense populations of organised through predator–prey relationships. For example, Ridgeia piscesae tubeworms that promote habitat hetero- although trophic structure complexity increased with ecolog- geneity and local diversity. A detailed description of the ical successional stages, showing a higher number of preda- biodiversity and community structure is needed to help un- tors in the last stages, the food web structure itself did not derstand the ecological processes that underlie the distribu- change across assemblages.