1 DR. HECKER: I will say it all depends on the depth and it depends 



2 on the lifestyle of the animal. I mean, I can tell you about some 



3 infauna at 3,000 meters in the Bahamas that after 12 years had not 



4 recovered. 



5 DR. AYERS: The deeper it is, the longer it takes. 



6 DR. HECKER: Generally. Unless you hit a petroleum well and you 



7 get seepage, and you get chemosynthetic organisms moving in, okay, in 



8 general, I would say things move slow, and that is in general. There 



9 are some people that will argue, but in general, things move slow. 



10 I think, also, another "in general" is the deeper you go, the more 



11 sensitive the organisms--maybe, and that is very "in general." 



12 DR. KRAEUTER: But that may not be true. One thing I keep 



13 puzzling about, and we haven't really touched on it here. We are 



14 talking around it. Obviously, we have a high concentration of filter 



15 feeders in these that we don't have on a slope. That implies, 



16 obviously, there is something going on with the food, to me, as opposed 



17 to recruitment mechanisms and things like that. 



18 DR. HECKER: What I am saying is: Aren't the two together, 



19 because the currents that are bringing the food in may also be bringing 



20 the larvae in, 



21 DR. KRAEUTER: But it also implies that with the higher density of 



22 the infauna and everything else, that there is a greater source of 



23 organic material coming into these areas from somewhere, or some reason 



24 that is causing this. That may be more important than the other things. 



25 I'm just trying to make analogy to the shallow waters that we 



26 know, and when you get these concentrations, it is often of some import, 



27 for some reason that's causing this. That may be more important than 



28 looking at the patchiness of distribution. We could go down the list 



29 and spend all day making up reasons for patchy distributions and 



30 probably never get there. 



31 Again, the rate of import of organic material, the concentration 



32 of it, or something may be very important and that gets back to 



33 mechanisms and rates again. We've got a greater biomass to support it, 



34 and there has got to be a good reason for that. 



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