Story:
* A single dead whale can nourish a specialized ecosystem that lasts for decades.
* Some signs suggest that whale-fall ecosystems have exchanges with other deep-seafloor communities, such as hydrothermal vents.
* Species similar to those at whale falls may have depended on dead marine reptiles for hundreds of millions of years.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-prolific-afterlife-of-whales&sc=CAT_EVO_20100208
Life at the Bottom: The Prolific Afterlife of Whales.r
