The study of hydrothermal vent and seep fauna is associated with great costs due to the deep and distant
locations. Whale-falls, which are thought to have habitat conditions which overlap seep ecosystems, may be used as a
model system to explore questions such as the evolution of dispersal strategies and interactions between hosts and their
symbiont microbes. Our discovery of whale-fall fauna at a whale carcass sunk at shelf depth in a Swedish fjord contrasts
the apparent lack of specialized organisms from shallow water seep environments. Representatives of a whale-fall fauna
found at the Swedish study site include bacterial mat feeding dorvilleid annelids and the whale-bone eating pogonophoran
worm Osedax mucofloris Glover et al., 2005. We are maintaining whale-fall fauna alive in aquaria, and initial results from
these studies suggest that O. mucofloris has a continuous reproduction life-history strategy.
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