[1] The InterRidge Vents Database is available online as the authoritative reference for locations of active submarine hydrothermal vent fields. Here we describe the revision of the database to an open source content management system and conduct a meta-analysis of the global distribution of known active vent fields. The number of known active vent fields has almost doubled in the past decade (521 as of year 2009), with about half visually confirmed and others inferred active from physical and chemical clues. Although previously known mainly from mid-ocean ridges (MORs), active vent fields at MORs now comprise only half of the total known, with about a quarter each now known at volcanic arcs and back-arc spreading centers. Discoveries in arc and back-arc settings resulted in an increase in known vent fields within exclusive economic zones, consequently reducing the proportion known in high seas to one third. The increase in known vent fields reflects a number of factors, including increased national and commercial interests in seafloor hydrothermal deposits as mineral resources. The purpose of the database now extends beyond academic research and education and into marine policy and management, with at least 18% of known vent fields in areas granted or pending applications for mineral prospecting and 8% in marine protected areas.

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a b s t r a c tIn nearly four decades since the discovery of deep-sea vents, one-third of the length of global oceanic spreading ridges has been surveyed for hydrothermal activity. Active submarine vent fields are now known along the boundaries of 46 out of 52 recognized tectonic plates. Hydrothermal survey efforts over the most recent decade were sparked by national and commercial interests in the mineral resource potential of seafloor hydrothermal deposits, as well as by academic research. Here we incorporate recent data for back-arc spreading centers and ultraslow-and slow-spreading mid-ocean ridges (MORs) to revise a linear equation relating the frequency of vent fields along oceanic spreading ridges to spreading rate. We apply this equation globally to predict a total number of vent fields on spreading ridges, which suggests that 900 vent fields remain to be discovered. Almost half of these undiscovered vent fields (comparable to the total of all vent fields discovered during 35 years of research) are likely to occur at MORs with full spreading rates less than 60 mm/yr. We then apply the equation regionally to predict where these hydrothermal vents may be discovered with respect to plate boundaries and national jurisdiction, with the majority expected to occur outside of states' exclusive economic zones. We hope that these predictions will prove useful to the community in the future, in helping to shape continuing ridgecrest exploration.

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The planktonic larval stage is a critical component of life history in marine benthic species because it confers the ability to disperse, potentially connecting remote populations and leading to colonization of new sites. Larval-mediated connectivity is particularly intriguing in deep-sea hydrothermal vent communities, where the habitat is patchy, transient, and often separated by tens or hundreds of kilometers. A recent catastrophic eruption at vents near 9°50′N on the East Pacific Rise created a natural clearance experiment and provided an opportunity to study larval supply in the absence of local source populations. Previous field observations have suggested that established vent populations may retain larvae and be largely self-sustaining. If this hypothesis is correct, the removal of local populations should result in a dramatic change in the flux, and possibly species composition, of settling larvae. Fortuitously, monitoring of larval supply and colonization at the site had been established before the eruption and resumed shortly afterward. We detected a striking change in species composition of larvae and colonists after the eruption, most notably the appearance of the gastropod Ctenopelta porifera, an immigrant from possibly more than 300 km away, and the disappearance of a suite of species that formerly had been prominent. This switch demonstrates that larval supply can change markedly after removal of local source populations, enabling recolonization via immigrants from distant sites with different species composition. Population connectivity at this site appears to be temporally variable, depending not only on stochasticity in larval supply, but also on the presence of resident populations.larval dispersal | population connectivity | Ctenopelta | Lepetodrilus | East Pacific Rise I n marine benthic systems, dispersal in a planktonic larval stage influences the dynamics and spatial structure of populations and can be critical for regional persistence of species. It is informative to consider these systems in the framework of metapopulation theory (1) as a balance between extinction and dispersal-mediated colonization. The extent to which a local marine population is open (i.e., the proportion of recruits that come from other locales) may increase its resilience to perturbation (2, 3), but recruitment of progeny back into the natal site also contributes to persistence (4). Larval dispersal between deep-sea hydrothermal vent communities is an intriguing topic in this context because the habitat is spatially disjunct and populations are subject to local extinctions. A major challenge to solving questions of population openness (connectivity) in marine systems, however, is determining whether the source of each recruit is local or remote because the larvae are difficult to track. Consequently, fundamental questions about how vent populations persist and what physical and biological processes control their connectivity remain unresolved despite more than three decades of research (5).Population genetic studi...

Species inhabiting deep-sea hydrothermal vents are strongly influenced by the geological setting, as it provides the chemical-rich fluids supporting the food web, creates the patchwork of seafloor habitat, and generates catastrophic disturbances that can eradicate entire communities. The patches of vent habitat host a network of communities (a metacommunity) connected by dispersal of planktonic larvae. The dynamics of the metacommunity are influenced not only by birth rates, death rates and interactions of populations at the local site, but also by regional influences on dispersal from different sites. The connections to other communities provide a mechanism for dynamics at a local site to affect features of the regional biota. In this paper, we explore the challenges and potential benefits of applying metacommunity theory to vent communities, with a particular focus on effects of disturbance. We synthesize field observations to inform models and identify data gaps that need to be addressed to answer key questions including: (1) what is the influence of the magnitude and rate of disturbance on ecological attributes, such as time to extinction or resilience in a metacommunity; (2) what interactions between local and regional processes control species diversity, and (3) which communities are "hot spots" of key ecological significance. We conclude by assessing our ability to evaluate resilience of vent metacommunities to human disturbance (e.g., deep-sea mining). Although the resilience of a few highly disturbed vent systems in the eastern Pacific has been quantified, these values cannot be generalized to remote locales in the western Pacific or mid Atlantic where disturbance rates are different and information on local controls is missing.