Abstract. Animals can be important in modulating ecosystem-level nutrient cycling, although their importance varies greatly among species and ecosystems. Nutrient cycling rates of individual animals represent valuable data for testing the predictions of important frameworks such as the Metabolic Theory of Ecology (MTE) and ecological stoichiometry (ES). They also represent an important set of functional traits that may reflect both environmental and phylogenetic influences. Over the past two decades, studies of animal-mediated nutrient cycling have increased dramatically, especially in aquatic ecosystems. Here we present a global compilation of aquatic animal nutrient excretion rates. The dataset includes 10,534 observations from freshwater and marine animals of N and/or P excretion rates. These observations represent 491 species, including most aquatic phyla. Coverage varies greatly among phyla and other taxonomic levels. The dataset includes information on animal body size, ambient temperature, taxonomic affiliations, and animal body N:P. This data set was used to test predictions of MTE and ES, as described in Vanni and McIntyre (2016; Ecology
Many of the world's productive deepwater hydrocarbon basins experience significant and ongoing vertical migration of fluids and gases to the modern seafloor. These products, which are composed of hydrocarbon gases, crude oil, formation fluids, and fluidized sediment, dramatically change the geologic character of the ocean floor, and they create sites where chemosynthetic communities supported by sulfide and hydrocarbons flourish.
Unique fauna inhabit these sites, and the chemosynthetic primary production results in communities with biomass much greater than that of the surrounding seafloor.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.