Text 1
Many marine biologists have historically claimed that deep-sea hydrothermal vent ecosystems operate in complete isolation from solar energy. Because these complex animal communities thrive in the absolute darkness of the ocean's abyssal zone where sunlight cannot penetrate, they rely on chemosynthetic bacteria that synthesize energy from geothermal chemicals, representing a food web entirely separate from the sun's influence.
Text 2
It is true that hydrothermal vent bacteria utilize hydrogen sulfide from geothermal activity to produce organic matter. However, the metabolic processes of the complex animals that consume these bacteria require dissolved oxygen. Since this ocean oxygen is ultimately produced by photosynthetic organisms in sunlit surface waters and transported downward, these deep-sea ecosystems remain fundamentally dependent on solar energy.
Match each claim or observation about deep-sea ecosystems with the passage or passages that support it.
- The view that deep-sea vent ecosystems exist completely independently of the sun's energySupported by Text 1 only
- The claim that geothermal chemicals drive the base of the deep-sea vent food webSupported by both Text 1 and Text 2
- The observation that deep-sea vent ecosystems are ultimately connected to surface photosynthesisSupported by Text 2 only