1 The question is: Were the old-style trays really giving us a 



2 correct understanding of how fast things were settling? Was there some 



3 recolonization in the sediments? 



4 These are regression lines. The solid line is a regression line 



5 based on Grassle's results from one of his permanent stations at 1,830 



6 meters depth. The dashed line is the same sort of result from 3,600 



7 meters depth. 



8 The X here represents our result from station 15 that I just 



9 showed you, and the two almost superimposed X's here represent the 



10 results from stations 5 and 6. The open circles represent results from 



11 our experiments in the mid-Atlantic, and they fall pretty much, whether 



12 they are new trays, old trays, it doesn't seem to make much difference. 



13 Fred's conclusion, and I concur with him, is that the old trays 



14 were giving us a valid picture of the rates of recolonization and the 



15 new trays are providing a very similar assessment of the situation. 



16 If you look at the lines and look at the numbers of individuals, 



17 and here we're looking at per quarter meter squared versus the number of 



18 months deployed, I think you'll agree that if any community at 2,100 



19 meters depth is seriously impacted to the point of being completely 



20 wiped out by any sort perturbation, it's going to take on the order of 



21 several years to return to its natural state. 



22 That's all. Thank you. 



23 DR. VALENTINE: Any questions? 



24 DR. TEAL: Nancy, there's a big barrier on the edge of those trays 



25 that the animals have to cross in order to get into them. I can't 



26 remember, are those animals planktonic for a short period? Do they move 



27 in the water when they're colonizing? 



28 DR. MACIOLEK: For most of the deep-sea species, we know very 



29 little about their life history. Most of them, I suspect, would 



30 probably--some of them might, in fact, have planktonic larvae, others 



31 come in as adults. 



32 One of the common things that we saw in the trays was an 



33 ectoparasite of a fish. Those, perhaps, had just come in accidentally 



34 in some way. 



128 



